title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: A heavily redesigned "Type 2" variant (internally designated "Typ 53B") went on sale in 1981, although it remained on the A1 platform. The second generation Scirocco, still assembled on behalf of Volkswagen by Karmann of Osnabrück (in the same factory as the first generation Scirocco), was first shown at the 1981 Geneva Motor Show in March that year. Designed by Volkswagen's own internal design team, the new car featured increased front and rear headroom, increased luggage space and a reduction in the coefficient of drag. One feature of the Type 2 was the location of the rear spoiler midway up the glass on the rear hatch. A mid-cycle update occurred in 1984, which included minor changes over the 1982 model: removal of the outlined "" script from the rear hatch (below the spoiler), a redesigned air conditioning compressor, and a different brake master cylinder with in-line proportioning valves and a brake light switch mounted to the pedal instead of on the master cylinder.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: Halfway through the 1984 model year, a new space-saver spare wheel was added, that provided room for a larger fuel tank (with a second "transfer" fuel pump). Leather interior, power windows and mirrors, air conditioning, and a manual sunroof were options for all years. The 1984 model year saw the return of two windshield wipers (vs the large single wiper), absent since the 1976 models.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: Eleven different engines were offered in the Type 2 Scirocco over the production run, although not all engines were available in all markets. These engines included both carburetor and fuel injection engines. Initially all models had eight-valve engines. A 16-valve head was developed by tuner Oettinger in 1981, with the modification adopted by Volkswagen when they showed a multi-valve Scirocco at the 1983 Frankfurt Motor Show. It went on sale in Germany and a few other markets in July 1985, with a catalyzed model arriving in 1986. Displacements ranged from 1.3 liters up to 1.8 liters. Power ranged from 44 kW (60 PS) to 82 kW (112 PS) for the 8-valve engines and either 95 kW (129 PS) or 102 kW (139 PS) for the 16-valve engines.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: Numerous trim levels existed, depending on the model year and market, and included the L, CL, GL, LS, GLS, GLI, GT, GTI, GTL, GTS, GTX, GT II, Scala, GT 16V and GTX 16V. Special limited edition models including the California Edition (1983, USA), Storm (1984, UK), White Cat (1985, Europe), Tropic (1986, Europe), Wolfsburg Edition (1983-1985, USA and Canada) and Slegato (1988, Canada) were also produced. These special models typically featured unique interior/exterior color combinations, special alloy wheels and had special combinations of options such as leather, multifunction trip computer and/or power windows as standard.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: Scirocco sales continued until 1992 in Germany, the UK, and some other European markets. The Scirocco was briefly joined but effectively replaced by the Corrado in the VW line-up, although this had been on sale since 1988 and was aimed further upmarket.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: The Scirocco continued to be offered to Japanese buyers, but only the GTi with the 1.8 L engine in either manual or automatic transmissions, but starting with 1986 only the automatic transmission was offered. It did continue to comply with Japanese Government dimension regulations.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: Specifications in North America are somewhat different from those of cars sold in the rest of the world, due to the differing safety and emissions regulations in place there. In North America, 1982 and 1983 models produce and of torque. The engine code was EN. The 1984 models produce and of torque, the engine code was JH. In mid-1986, a 16-valve model was released in the United States and Canada, which included a full body skirt, larger rear spoiler, and tear-drop shaped wheel slots to distinguish it from Type 2 8-valve models. Sales continued until 1988 in the United States, 1989 in Canada, being effectively replaced in both markets by the more expensive Corrado.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: Volkswagen officially announced in June 2006 production of a new Scirocco model at the Autoeuropa assembly plant in Palmela, Portugal.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: The new model, identified by the internal type numbers 137 or 1K8, is based on the PQ35 platform of the Golf V and was unveiled at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show. It went on sale in summer 2008 in Europe, with sales in other countries beginning early 2009. The Type 3 Scirocco won "Car of the Year 2008" from "Top Gear Magazine".


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: The 2008 model of the Scirocco received a five star safety rating from Euro NCAP even after the driver test dummy's head hit the steering wheel when the airbag bottomed out.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: The Scirocco R is a production model based on the GT24. Its TSI inline-four engine is rated at at 6,000 rpm and of torque at 2,500 rpm, large air intake openings in the front bumper, an integrated front spoiler, bi-xenon headlights, larger rear roof edge spoiler, black diffuser, dual exhaust with chrome tailpipes, Talladega 19-inch alloy wheels. In September 2014 the R model had a face lift on the styling of the car and a power increase taking it to .


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: Six years after its launch in 2008, Volkswagen revealed the 2014 Scirocco facelift at the Geneva Motor Show. On the outside the changes weren't obvious as Volkswagen installed only a slightly re-profiled bumper, new bi-xenon headlights with LED daytime running lights and they also tweaked the grille. At the back there were restyled LED taillights, along with a reworked bumper and boot lid. The changes carried over onto the range-topping Scirocco R as well.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: All models include standard six-speed manual transmission. The 1.4 TSI (162 PS) can optionally be fitted with a seven-speed DSG transmission, while the 2.0 TSI 200, 2.0 TSI 210, R 2.0 TSI 265 and 2.0 TDI are available with a six-speed DSG transmission.The EA888 2.0 TSI uses an IHI K03 water-cooled turbocharger incorporated in exhaust manifold, while a BorgWarner turbocharger is used in EA113 2.0 TSI versions.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: The 140 bhp 2.0 TDI engine is also provided with the BlueMotion Technology package. This package features stop start technology and regenerative braking to reduce emissions to 118 g/km .


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: In the 24 Hours Nürburgring in May 2008, three new Volkswagen Sciroccos competed, finishing 11th and 15th out of a field of over 200 cars, with veteran Hans-Joachim Stuck driving both cars (and Carlos Sainz the slower one). The direct competitors, two Opel Astra H GTC driven by drivers selected from 18,000 hopefuls in a year-long TV covered process, were beaten decisively. In the 2012 edition of the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship Johan Kristoffersson won the championship for Volkswagen Team Biogas in a Scirocco.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: In April 2007, Volkswagen America vice president Adrian Hallmark claimed that Volkswagen preferred not to bring the Scirocco to North America since it could negatively affect Golf GTI sales. It was later stated that the final decision would be made in 2008 by Martin Winterkorn (Volkswagen's CEO), not Volkswagen of America.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: In early March 2008, MotorAuthority reported that, due to the increasing gap between the United States dollar and the euro, the Scirocco would not be made available for American consumers. "This car would fit the U.S. market but at the current exchange rate we wouldn't make any money," Volkswagen sales and marketing chief Detlef Wittig told Bloomberg reporters.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: A concept car previewing the then upcoming Scirocco III was unveiled at the 2006 Paris Motor Show. Named IROC, from the middle four letters of "Scirocco", it used a TSI engine.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: The Scirocco GT24 is a race car for the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring. It has a 2.0 L TSI engine rated at and at 2,100 rpm as well as a DSG transmission.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: The Studie R is a concept car based on the Scirocco GT24, after Volkswagen had cancelled the production of the Scirocco R32.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: It has a 2.0 L TSI engine rated at , six-speed dual clutch transmission, four-piston brake calipers and a sound-optimized exhaust system with oval, tailpipes.


title: Volkswagen Scirocco

text: In 2017, Volkswagen's Chief Development Officer Dr. Frank Welsch stated that Volkswagen was contemplating options for a new small coupé, and wasn't clear on how they would approach a new Scirocco, and the possibility of a MEB-based concept. Welsch said that if the Scirocco name was to be used again, it would only be for a sporty 2-door coupe, and would not have a drastically different design from previous Sciroccos. In 2020, when asked if a new Scirocco was planned, board member Thomas Ulbrich answered "I don't think so", and that they were in no rush to release a new coupé.


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu (; ), courtesy name Yunchang, was a Chinese military general serving under the warlord Liu Bei during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. Along with Zhang Fei, he shared a brotherly relationship with Liu Bei and accompanied him on most of his early exploits. Guan Yu played a significant role in the events leading up to the end of the Han dynasty and the establishment of Liu Bei's state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period. While he is remembered for his loyalty towards Liu Bei, he is also known for repaying Cao Cao's kindness by slaying Yan Liang, a general under Cao Cao's rival Yuan Shao, at the Battle of Boma. After Liu Bei gained control of Yi Province in 214, Guan Yu remained in Jing Province to govern and defend the area for about seven years. In 219, while he was away fighting Cao Cao's forces at the Battle of Fancheng, Liu Bei's ally Sun Quan broke the Sun–Liu alliance and sent his general Lü Meng to conquer Liu Bei's territories in Jing Province. By the time Guan Yu found out about the loss of Jing Province after his defeat at Fancheng, it was too late. He was subsequently captured in an ambush by Sun Quan's forces and executed.


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu's life was lionised and his achievements glorified to such an extent after his death that he was deified during the Sui dynasty. Through generations of storytelling, culminating in the 14th-century historical novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", his deeds and moral qualities have been given immense emphasis, making Guan Yu one of East Asia's most popular paradigms of loyalty and righteousness. He is still worshipped by many Chinese people today. In religious devotion he is reverentially called the "Emperor Guan" ("Guān Dì") or "Lord Guan" ("Guān Gōng"). He is a deity worshipped in Chinese folk religion, popular Confucianism, Taoism, and Chinese Buddhism, and small shrines to him are almost ubiquitous in traditional Chinese shops and restaurants.


title: Guan Yu

text: The authoritative historical source on Guan Yu's life is the "Records of the Three Kingdoms" ("Sanguozhi") written by Chen Shou in the third century. During the fifth century, Pei Songzhi annotated the "Sanguozhi" by incorporating information from other sources to Chen Shou's original work and adding his personal comments. Some alternative texts used in the annotations to Guan Yu's biography include: "Shu Ji" ("Records of Shu"), by Wang Yin; "Wei Shu" ("Book of Wei"), by Wang Chen, Xun Yi and Ruan Ji; "Jiang Biao Zhuan", by Yu Pu; "Fu Zi", by Fu Xuan; "Dianlue", by Yu Huan; "Wu Li" ("History of Wu"), by Hu Chong; and "Chronicles of Huayang", by Chang Qu.


title: Guan Yu

text: No explicit descriptions of Guan Yu's physical appearance exist in historical records, however the "Sanguozhi" recorded that Zhuge Liang once referred to Guan Yu as having a "peerless beard".


title: Guan Yu

text: Traditionally, Guan Yu is portrayed as a red-faced warrior with a long, lush beard. The idea of his red face may have been derived from a description of him in Chapter 1 of the 14th-century historical novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", where the following passage appears:


title: Guan Yu

text: Alternatively, the idea of his red face could have been borrowed from opera representation, where red faces represented loyalty and righteousness. In illustrations of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Guan Yu is traditionally depicted wearing a green robe over his body armour.


title: Guan Yu

text: Supposedly, Guan Yu's weapon was a guan dao named Green Dragon Crescent Blade, which resembled a podao, glaive, or naginata and was said to weigh 82 catties (about 49.2 kg or 108.4674 lbs).


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu was from Xie County (), Hedong Commandery, which is present-day Yuncheng, Shanxi. His original courtesy name was Changsheng (). He was very studious, and was interested in the ancient history book "Zuo zhuan" and could fluently recite lines from it.” He fled from his hometown for unknown reasons and went to Zhuo Commandery. When the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out in the 180s, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei joined a volunteer militia formed by Liu Bei, and they assisted a colonel Zou Jing in suppressing the revolt. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were known as stalwart and strong men; which made them talented fighters.


title: Guan Yu

text: When Liu Bei was appointed as the Minister () of Pingyuan, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were appointed as Majors of Separate Command (), each commanding detachments of soldiers under Liu Bei. Liu Bei cherished them as if they were his own brothers and the three of them were as close as brothers to the point of sharing the same room, sleeping on the same mat and eating from the same pot. Zhang Fei and Guan Yu protected Liu Bei whenever there were large crowds of people and also stood guard beside him when he sat down at meetings all day long. They followed him on his exploits and were always ready to face any danger and hardship. And for their military prowess were appraised as "enemy of ten-thousand".” Guan Yu was noted for his kindness towards his soldiers and fealty to Liu Bei akin to family, but had no respect for the gentry and treated them without courtesy.


title: Guan Yu

text: Liu Bei and his men followed Cao Cao back to the imperial capital Xu after their victory over Lü Bu at the Battle of Xiapi in 198. About a year later, Liu Bei and his followers escaped from Xu under the pretext of helping Cao Cao lead an army to attack Yuan Shu. Liu Bei went to Xu Province, killed the provincial inspector Che Zhou (), and seized control of the province. He moved to Xiaopei and left Guan Yu in charge of the provincial capital Xiapi.


title: Guan Yu

text: In 200, Cao Cao led his forces to attack Liu Bei, defeated him and retook Xu Province. Liu Bei fled to northern China and found refuge under Cao Cao's rival Yuan Shao, while Guan Yu was captured by Cao Cao's forces and brought back to Xu. Cao Cao treated Guan Yu respectfully and asked Emperor Xian to appoint Guan Yu as a Lieutenant-General ().


title: Guan Yu

text: Later that year, Yuan Shao sent his general Yan Liang to lead an army to attack Cao Cao's garrison at Boma (; near present-day Hua County, Henan), which was defended by Liu Yan (). Cao Cao sent Zhang Liao and Guan Yu to lead the vanguard to engage the enemy. In the midst of battle, Guan Yu recognised Yan Liang's parasol so he charged towards Yan Liang, decapitated him and returned with his head. Yan Liang's men could not stop him. With Yan Liang's death, the siege on Boma was lifted. On Cao Cao's recommendation, Emperor Xian awarded Guan Yu the peerage of "Marquis of Hanshou Village" ().


title: Guan Yu

text: Although Cao Cao admired Guan Yu's character, he also sensed that Guan Yu had no intention of serving under him for long. He told Zhang Liao, "Why don't you make use of your friendship with Guan Yu to find out what he wants?" When Zhang Liao asked him, Guan Yu replied, "I am aware that Lord Cao treats me very generously. However, I have also received many favours from General Liu and I have sworn to follow him until I die. I cannot break my oath. I will leave eventually, so maybe you can help me convey my message to Lord Cao." Zhang Liao did so, and Cao Cao was even more impressed with Guan Yu. The "Fu Zi" gave a slightly different account of this incident. It recorded that Zhang Liao faced a dilemma of whether or not to convey Guan Yu's message to Cao Cao: if he did, Cao Cao might execute Guan Yu; if he did not, he would be failing in his service to Cao Cao. He sighed, "Lord Cao is my superior and he is like a father to me, while Guan Yu is like a brother to me." He eventually decided to tell Cao Cao. Cao Cao said, "A subject who serves his lord but doesn't forget his origins is truly a man of righteousness. When do you think he will leave?" Zhang Liao replied, "Guan Yu has received favours from Your Excellency. He will most probably leave after he has repaid your kindness."


title: Guan Yu

text: After Guan Yu slew Yan Liang and lifted the siege on Baima, Cao Cao knew that he would leave soon so he gave Guan Yu greater rewards. Guan Yu sealed up all the gifts he received from Cao Cao, wrote a farewell letter, and headed towards Yuan Shao's territory to find Liu Bei. Cao Cao's subordinates wanted to pursue Guan Yu, but Cao Cao stopped them and said, "He's just doing his duty to his lord. There's no need to pursue him."


title: Guan Yu

text: Pei Songzhi commented on this as follows: "Cao Cao admired Guan Yu's character even though he knew that Guan Yu would not remain under him. He did not send his men to pursue Guan Yu when Guan Yu left, so as to allow Guan Yu to fulfil his allegiance (to Liu Bei). If he was not as magnanimous as a great warlord should be, how would he allow this to happen? This was an example of Cao Cao's goodness."


title: Guan Yu

text: When Cao Cao and Yuan Shao clashed at the Battle of Guandu in 200, Yuan sent Liu Bei to contact Liu Pi (), a Yellow Turban rebel chief in Runan (), and assist Liu Pi in attacking the imperial capital Xu while Cao Cao was away at Guandu. Guan Yu reunited with Liu Bei around this time. Liu Bei and Liu Pi were defeated by Cao Cao's general Cao Ren, after which Liu Bei returned to Yuan Shao. Liu Bei secretly planned to leave Yuan Shao, so he pretended to persuade Yuan Shao to form an alliance with Liu Biao, the Governor of Jing Province. Yuan Shao sent Liu Bei to contact another rebel leader, Gong Du (), in Runan, where they gathered a few thousand soldiers. Cao Cao turned back and attacked Runan after scoring a decisive victory over Yuan Shao at Guandu, and he defeated Liu Bei in Runan. Liu Bei fled south and found shelter under Liu Biao, who put him in charge of Xinye at the northern border of Jing Province. Guan Yu followed Liu Bei to Xinye.


title: Guan Yu

text: Liu Biao died in 208 and was succeeded by his younger son, Liu Cong, who surrendered Jing Province to Cao Cao when the latter started a campaign that year with the aim of wiping out opposing forces in southern China. Liu Bei evacuated Xinye together with his followers and they headed towards Xiakou, which was guarded by Liu Biao's elder son Liu Qi and independent of Cao Cao's control. Along the journey, Liu Bei divided his party into two groups – one led by Guan Yu which would sail along the river towards Jiangling; another led by Liu Bei which would travel on land. Cao Cao sent 5,000 elite cavalry to pursue Liu Bei's group and they caught up with them at Changban, where the Battle of Changban broke out. Liu Bei and his remaining followers managed to escape from Cao Cao's forces and reach Han Ford (), where Guan Yu's group picked them up and they sailed to Xiakou together.


title: Guan Yu

text: In 208, Liu Bei allied with Sun Quan and they defeated Cao Cao at the decisive Battle of Red Cliffs. Cao Cao retreated north after his defeat and left Cao Ren behind to defend Jing Province. During the Battle of Jiangling, Guan Yu was stationed at the northern routes to block Cao Ren's supply lines via infiltration. Li Tong engaged Guan Yu, attempting to support Cao Ren's forces, but died from illness during the campaign. Xu Huang and Man Chong also engaged with Guan Yu in Hanjin() in order support Cao Ren against Zhou Yu. Finally, Yue Jin, stationed in Xiangyang, defeated Guan Yu and Su Fei () and drove them away. After seizing and pacifying the various commanderies in southern Jing Province, Liu Bei appointed Guan Yu as the Administrator () of Xiangyang and General Who Defeats Bandits (), and ordered him to station at the north of the Yangtze River.


title: Guan Yu

text: Between 212 and 214, Liu Bei started a campaign to seize control of Yi Province from the provincial governor Liu Zhang. Most of Liu Bei's subordinates participated in the campaign, while Guan Yu remained behind to guard and oversee Liu Bei's territories in Jing Province.


title: Guan Yu

text: During the mid 210s, a territorial dispute broke out between Liu Bei and Sun Quan in southern Jing Province. According to an earlier arrangement, Liu Bei "borrowed" southern Jing Province from Sun Quan to serve as a temporary base; he would have to return the territories to Sun Quan once he found another base. After Liu Bei seized control of Yi Province, Sun Quan asked him to return three commanderies but Liu Bei refused. Sun Quan then sent his general Lü Meng to lead his forces to seize the three commanderies. In response, Liu Bei ordered Guan Yu to lead troops to stop Lü Meng. Gan Ning, one of Lü Meng's subordinates, managed to deter Guan Yu from crossing the shallows near Yiyang. The shallows were thus named 'Guan Yu's Shallows' (). Lu Su (the overall commander of Sun Quan's forces in Jing Province) later invited Guan Yu to attend a meeting to settle the territorial dispute. Around 215, after Cao Cao seized control of Hanzhong Commandery, Liu Bei saw that as a strategic threat to his position in Yi Province so he decided to make peace with Sun Quan and agreed to divide southern Jing Province between his and Sun Quan's domains along the Xiang River. Both sides then withdrew their forces.


title: Guan Yu

text: In 219, Liu Bei emerged victorious in the Hanzhong Campaign against Cao Cao, after which he declared himself "King of Hanzhong" (). He appointed Guan Yu as General of the Vanguard () and bestowed upon him a ceremonial axe. In the same year, Guan Yu led his forces to attack Cao Ren at Fancheng and besiege the fortress. Cao Cao sent Yu Jin to lead reinforcements to help Cao Ren. It was in autumn and there were heavy showers so the Han River overflowed. The flood destroyed Yu Jin's seven armies. Guan Yu had prepared his navy to advance during the flood, and Yu Jin surrendered to Guan Yu while his subordinate Pang De refused and was executed by Guan Yu. Various local officials such as Administrator of Nanxiang Fu Fang and Inspector Jing Province Hu Xiu defected to Guan Yu. Angered by Cao Cao's forced labor put upon them, rebel peasants and bandits in Liang(), Jia() and Luhun() also submitted to Guan Yu and received official seals to work as his raiders. Guan Yu's fame spread throughout China.


title: Guan Yu

text: The "Shu Ji" recorded that before Guan Yu embarked on the Fancheng campaign, he dreamt about a boar biting his foot. He told his son Guan Ping, "I am growing weaker this year. I might not even return alive."


title: Guan Yu

text: With Liu Bei gaining Hanzhong as well as the northwest commanderies of Jing: Fangling, Shangyong and Xicheng; and now after Yu Jin's defeat, Cao Cao contemplated relocating the imperial capital from Xu further north into Hebei to avoid Guan Yu, but Sima Yi and Jiang Ji told him that Sun Quan would become restless when he heard of Guan Yu's victory. They suggested to Cao Cao to ally with Sun Quan and get him to help them hinder Guan Yu's advances; in return, Cao Cao would recognise the legitimacy of Sun Quan's claim over the territories in Jiangdong. In this way, the siege on Fancheng would automatically be lifted. Cao Cao heeded their suggestion. Previously, Sun Quan had sent a messenger to meet Guan Yu and propose a marriage between his son and Guan Yu's daughter. However, Guan Yu not only rejected the proposal, but also scolded and humiliated the messenger. Sun Quan was enraged.


title: Guan Yu

text: Cao Cao later sent Xu Huang to lead another army to reinforce Cao Ren at Fancheng. Xu Huang broke through Guan Yu's encirclement and routed Guan Yu's forces on the battlefield, thus lifting the siege on Fancheng. Guan Yu withdrew his forces after seeing that he could not capture Fancheng. The "Shu Ji" recorded an incident about Xu Huang encountering Guan Yu on the battlefield. Xu Huang was previously a close friend of Guan Yu. They often chatted about other things apart from military affairs. When they met again at Fancheng, Xu Huang gave an order to his men: "Whoever takes Guan Yu's head will be rewarded with 1,000 "jin" of gold." A shocked Guan Yu asked Xu Huang, "Brother, what are you talking about?" Xu Huang replied, "This is an affair of the state."


title: Guan Yu

text: Although Guan Yu defeated and captured Yu Jin at Fancheng, his army found itself lacking food supplies, so he seized grain from one of Sun Quan's granaries at Xiang Pass (). By then, Sun Quan had secretly agreed to an alliance with Cao Cao and sent Lü Meng and others to invade Jing Province while he followed behind with reinforcements. At Xunyang (), Lü Meng ordered his troops to hide in vessels disguised as civilian and merchant ships and sail towards Jing Province. Along the way, Lü Meng infiltrated and disabled the watchtowers set up by Guan Yu along the river, so Guan Yu was totally unaware of the invasion.


title: Guan Yu

text: When Guan Yu embarked on the Fancheng campaign, he left Mi Fang and Shi Ren behind to defend his key bases in Jing Province – Nan Commandery and Gong'an. Guan Yu had constantly treated them with contempt. During the campaign, after Mi Fang and Shi Ren sent insufficient supplies to Guan Yu's army at the frontline, an annoyed Guan Yu said, "I will deal with them when I return." Mi Fang and Shi Ren felt uneasy about this. When Sun Quan invaded Jing Province, Lü Meng showed understanding towards Mi Fang and successfully induced him into surrendering while Yu Fan also persuaded Shi Ren to give up resistance. With the exceptions of the northwest, Liu Bei's territories in Jing Province fell under Sun Quan's control after the surrenders of Mi Fang and Shi Ren.


title: Guan Yu

text: By the time Guan Yu retreated from Fancheng, Sun Quan's forces had occupied Jiangling and captured the families of Guan Yu's soldiers. Lü Meng ordered his troops to treat the civilians well and ensure that they were not harmed. Most of Guan Yu's soldiers lost their fighting spirit and deserted and went back to Jing Province to reunite with their families. Guan Yu knew that he had been isolated so he withdrew to Maicheng (; in present-day Dangyang, Hubei) and headed west to Zhang District (), where his remaining men deserted him and surrendered to the enemy. Sun Quan sent Zhu Ran and Pan Zhang to block Guan Yu's retreat route. Guan Yu, along with his son Guan Ping and subordinate Zhao Lei (), were captured alive by Pan Zhang's deputy Ma Zhong () in an ambush. Guan Yu and Guan Ping were later executed by Sun Quan's forces in Linju (; in present-day Nanzhang County, Hubei).


title: Guan Yu

text: The "Shu Ji" mentioned that Sun Quan initially wanted to keep Guan Yu alive in the hope of using Guan Yu to help him counter Liu Bei and Cao Cao. However, his followers advised him against doing so by saying, "A wolf shouldn't be kept as a pet as it'll bring harm to the keeper. Cao Cao made a mistake when he refused to kill Guan Yu and landed himself in deep trouble. He even had to consider relocating the imperial capital elsewhere. How can Guan Yu be allowed to live?" Sun Quan then ordered Guan Yu's execution.


title: Guan Yu

text: Sun Quan sent Guan Yu's head to Cao Cao, who arranged a noble's funeral for Guan Yu and had his head properly buried with full honours. In October or November 260, Liu Shan granted Guan Yu the posthumous title "Marquis Zhuangmou" (). According to posthumous naming rules in the "Yi Zhou Shu", "mou" was meant for a person who failed to live up to his reputation.


title: Guan Yu

text: During the Battle of Xiapi in late 198, when the allied forces of Cao Cao and Liu Bei fought against Lü Bu, Guan Yu sought permission from Cao Cao to marry Qin Yilu's wife Lady Du () after they won the battle. After Cao Cao agreed, Guan Yu still repeatedly reminded Cao Cao about his promise before the battle ended. After Lü Bu's defeat and death, Cao Cao was so curious about why Guan Yu wanted Lady Du so badly and he guessed that she must be very beautiful, so he had her brought to him. Cao Cao ultimately broke his promise as he took Lady Du as his concubine and adopted her son Qin Lang (whom she had with Qin Yilu).


title: Guan Yu

text: In 214, Ma Chao defected from Zhang Lu's side to Liu Bei's forces, and he assisted Liu Bei in pressuring Liu Zhang to surrender and yield Yi Province to Liu Bei. When Guan Yu received news that Ma Chao (whom he was unfamiliar with) had recently joined them, he wrote to Zhuge Liang in Yi Province and asked him who was comparable to Ma Chao. Zhuge Liang knew that Guan Yu was defending the border (so he should not displease Guan Yu). He replied: "Mengqi is proficient in both civil and military affairs. He is fierce and mighty, and a hero of his time. He is comparable to Qing Bu and Peng Yue. He can compete with Yide, but he is not as good as the peerless beard."


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu was once injured in the left arm by a stray arrow which pierced through his arm. Although the wound healed, he still experienced pain in the bone whenever there was a heavy downpour. A physician told him, "The arrowhead had poison on it and the poison had seeped into the bone. The way to get rid of this problem is to cut open your arm and scrape away the poison in your bone." Guan Yu then stretched out his arm and asked the physician to heal him. He then invited his subordinates to dine with him while the surgery was being performed. Blood flowed from his arm into a container below. Throughout the operation, Guan Yu feasted, consumed alcohol and chatted with his men as though nothing had happened.


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu had two known sons – Guan Ping and Guan Xing. Guan Xing inherited his father's title "Marquis of Hanshou Village" () and served in the state of Shu during the Three Kingdoms period. Guan Yu also had a daughter. Sun Quan once proposed a marriage between his son and Guan Yu's daughter, but Guan Yu rejected the proposal. Her name was not recorded in history, but she was known as "Guan Yinping" () or "Guan Feng" () in folktales and Chinese opera, as well as in the "Dynasty Warriors" video game series (as Guan Yinping). Guan Yu allegedly had a third son, Guan Suo, who is not mentioned in historical texts and appears only in folklore, the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" novel, and in "Dynasty Warriors".


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Xing's son, Guan Tong (), married a princess (one of Liu Shan's daughters) and served as a General of the Household () among the imperial guards. Guan Tong had no son when he died, so he was succeeded by his younger half-brother Guan Yi ().


title: Guan Yu

text: According to the "Shu Ji", after the fall of Shu in 263, Pang Hui (Pang De's son) massacred Guan Yu's family and descendants to avenge his father, who was executed by Guan Yu after the Battle of Fancheng in 219.


title: Guan Yu

text: In 1719, the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty awarded the hereditary title "Wujing Boshi" (; "Professor of the Five Classics") to Guan Yu's descendants living in Luoyang. The bearer of the title is entitled to an honorary position in the Hanlin Academy.


title: Guan Yu

text: Chen Shou, who wrote Guan Yu's biography in the "Sanguozhi", commented on the latter as such: "Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were praised as mighty warriors capable of fighting ten thousand of enemies (萬人敵). They were like tigers among (Liu Bei's) subjects. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei both had the style of a "guoshi". Guan Yu repaid Cao Cao's kindness while Zhang Fei released Yan Yan out of righteousness. However, Guan Yu was unrelenting and conceited while Zhang Fei was brutal and heartless. These shortcomings resulted in their downfalls. This was not something uncommon."


title: Guan Yu

text: Both Guan Yu and Zhang Fei had a prominent reputation during their lifetimes as great warriors. To the point that eminent officials from other kingdoms such as Cheng Yu, Guo Jia and Zhou Yu directly referred to them as warriors who are a match for ten thousand men (萬人敵) and generals with the might of bears and tigers. Such was the extent of their fames. Another lesser known official working for Cao Cao's state, Fu Gan (傅幹) qualified Zhang Fei and Guan Yu as heroes of their time possessing both braveness and righteousness; and also repeat the assessment that they are warriors who are a match for ten thousand men (萬人敵).


title: Guan Yu

text: The appraisal used by people of their lifetimes to describe Guan Yu and Zhang Fei as warriors who are a match for ten thousand men (萬人敵) would transcend the Three Kingdoms era and later be used in Chinese culture as an idiom to characterize someone as possessing extraordinary strength.


title: Guan Yu

text: The Australian sinologist Rafe de Crespigny commented: "There are anecdotes describing Zhang Fei as a man of literary tastes who composed verse in the midst of battle, but he is more generally known as arrogant, impetuous and brutal. While Guan Yu was said to be harsh towards men of the gentry but treated his soldiers well, Zhang Fei was courteous towards his betters but cruel to his rank and file. The two men were nonetheless regarded as the finest fighting men of their lifetime."


title: Guan Yu

text: The 14th-century historical novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" glorifies Guan Yu by portraying him as a righteous and loyal warrior. Guan Yu is one of the most altered and aggrandised characters in the novel, which accounts for his popular image in Chinese society.


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu was deified as early as the Sui dynasty (581–618), and is still worshipped today as a bodhisattva in Buddhist tradition and as a guardian deity in Chinese folk religion and Taoism. He is also held in high esteem in Confucianism.


title: Guan Yu

text: In Chinese folk religion, Guan Yu is widely referred to as "Emperor Guan" (; "dì" implies deified status) and "Lord Guan" (), while his Taoist title is "Holy Emperor Lord Guan" (). Martial temples and shrines dedicated exclusively to Guan Yu can be found across mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and other places with Chinese influence such as Vietnam, South Korea and Japan. Some of these temples, such as the Guandi Temple in Xiezhou (), Shanxi, were built exactly in the layout of an imperial residence, befitting his status as a "ruler".


title: Guan Yu

text: The apotheosis of Guan Yu occurred in stages, as he was given ever higher posthumous titles. Liu Shan, the second emperor of Shu, gave Guan Yu the posthumous title of "Marquis Zhuangmou" () four decades after his death. During the Song dynasty, Emperor Huizong bestowed upon Guan Yu the title "Duke Zhonghui" (), and later the title of a prince. In 1187, Emperor Xiaozong honoured Guan Yu as "Prince Zhuangmou Yiyong Wu'an Yingji" (). During the Yuan dynasty, Emperor Wenzong changed Guan Yu's title to "Prince of Xianling Yiyong Wu'an Yingji" ().


title: Guan Yu

text: In 1614, the Wanli Emperor bestowed on Guan Yu the title "Holy Emperor Guan, the Great God Who Subdues Demons in the Three Worlds and Whose Awe Spreads Far and Moves Heaven" (). During the Qing dynasty, the Shunzhi Emperor gave Guan Yu the title of "Guan, the Loyal and Righteous God of War, the Holy Great Deity" () in 1644. This title was expanded to "Guan the Holy Great Deity; God of War Manifesting Benevolence, Bravery and Prestige; Protector of the Country and Defender of the People; Proud and Honest Supporter of Peace and Reconciliation; Promoter of Morality, Loyalty and Righteousness" (), a total of 24 Chinese characters, by the mid-19th century. It is often shortened to "Saint of War" (), which is of the same rank as Confucius, who is honoured the "Saint of Culture" (). The Qing dynasty promoted the worship of Guan Yu among the Mongol tribes, making him one of their most revered religious figures, second only to their lamas.


title: Guan Yu

text: Throughout history, Guan Yu has also been credited with many military successes. In the 14th century, his spirit was said to have aided Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming dynasty, at the Battle of Lake Poyang. In 1402, when Zhu Di launched a coup d'état and successfully deposed his nephew, the Jianwen Emperor, Zhu Di claimed that he was blessed by the spirit of Guan Yu. During the last decade of the 16th century, Guan Yu was also credited with the repulse of Japanese invasion of Korea by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The Manchu imperial clan of the Qing dynasty was also associated with Guan Yu's martial qualities. During the 20th century, Guan Yu was worshipped by the warlord Yuan Shikai, president and later a short-lived emperor of China.


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu's messages were received by mediums through spirit writing, later called Fuji (planchette writing) (), since the late 17th century. “By the mid-Qianlong period (1736–96) the number of ‘sacred edicts’ issued by Guandi ordering people to do good and help those in need became increasingly frequent.” In the 19th century, Guandi’s messages received through spirit writing assumed a millennialist character. Dates were announced for the end of the world, followed by messages indicating that Guandi had “prevented the apocalypse” and was indeed “the savior of endtimes.” In 1866, the Ten Completions Society (Shiquanhui 十全會) was established to propagate the messages of Guandi and promote the charitable work his spirit had ordered to perform. The tradition of Guandi spirit writing continued in Chinese folk Religion well into the 20th century.


title: Guan Yu

text: Today, Guan Yu is still widely worshipped by the Chinese; he may be worshipped in Martial temples and Wen Wu temples, and small shrines devoted to him are also found in homes, businesses and fraternal organisations. In Hong Kong, a shrine to Guan Yu can be found in every police station. Though by no means mandatory, Chinese police officers worship and pay respect to him. Although seemingly ironic, members of the triads and Heaven and Earth Society worship Guan Yu as well. Statues used by triads tend to hold the halberd in the left hand, and statues in police stations tend to hold the halberd in the right hand. This signifies which side Guan Yu is worshipped, by the righteous people or vice versa. The appearance of Guan Yu's face for the triads is usually more stern and threatening than the usual statue. In Hong Kong, Guan Yu is often referred to as "Yi Gor" (; Cantonese for "second elder brother") for he was second to Liu Bei in their fictional sworn brotherhood. Guan Yu is also worshipped by Chinese businessmen in Shanxi, Hong Kong, Macau and Southeast Asia as an alternative wealth god, since he is perceived to bless the upright and protect them from the wicked. Another reason is related to the release of Cao Cao during the Huarong Trail incident, in which he let Cao and his men pass through safely. For that, he was perceived to be able to extend the lifespan of people in need. Among Chinese Filipinos in the Philippines, Guan Yu is also sometimes known as ""Santo Santiago"" (St. James) or in Hokkien as ""Te Ya Kong"" (Hokkien ) or ""Kuan Kong"" (Hokkien ).


title: Guan Yu

text: Among the Cantonese people who emigrated to California during the mid-19th century, the worship of Guan Yu was an important element. Statues and tapestry images of the god can be found in a number of historical California joss houses (a local term for Chinese folk religion temples), where his name may be given with various Anglicised spellings, including: "Kwan Dai", "Kwan Tai" or "Kuan Ti" for "Guandi" (Emperor Guan); "Kuan Kung" for "Guan Gong" (Lord Guan), "Wu Ti" or "Mo Dai" for "Wu Di" (War Deity), "Kuan Yu", "Kwan Yu", or "Quan Yu" for Guan Yu. The Mendocino Joss House, a historical landmark also known as Mo Dai Miu ("Wudimiao", i.e. the Temple of the Deity of War), or Temple of Kwan Tai, built in 1852, is a typical example of the small shrines erected to Guan Yu in the United States.


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu is also worshipped as a door god in Chinese and Taoist temples, with portraits of him being pasted on doors to ward off evil spirits, usually in pairings with Zhang Fei, Guan Ping, Guan Sheng or Zhou Cang.


title: Guan Yu

text: Apart from general worship, Guan Yu is also commemorated in China with colossal statues such as the 1,320-tonne sculpture in Jingzhou City, Hubei Province, standing at 58 metres.


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu is revered as "Holy Ruler Deity Guan" () and a leading subduer of demons in Taoism. Taoist worship of Guan Yu began during the Song dynasty. Legend has it that during the second decade of the 12th century, the saltwater lake in Xiezhou gradually ceased to yield salt. Emperor Huizong then summoned Zhang Jixian (), a 30th-generation descendant of Zhang Daoling, to investigate the cause. The emperor was told that the disruption was the work of Chi You, a deity of war. Zhang Jixian then recruited the help of Guan Yu, who battled Chi You over the lake and triumphed, whereupon the lake resumed salt production. Emperor Huizong then bestowed upon Guan Yu the title "Immortal of Chongning" (), formally introducing the latter as a deity into Taoism.


title: Guan Yu

text: In the early Ming dynasty, the 42nd Celestial Master, Zhang Zhengchang (), recorded the incident in his book "Lineage of the Han Celestial Masters" (), the first Taoist classic to affirm the legend. Today, Taoist practices are predominant in Guan Yu worship. Many temples dedicated to Guan Yu, including the Emperor Guan Temple in Xiezhou County, show heavy Taoist influence. Every year, on the 24th day of the sixth month on the lunar calendar (Guan Yu's birthday in legend), a street parade in Guan Yu's honour would also be held.


title: Guan Yu

text: In Chinese Buddhism, Guan Yu is revered by most Chinese Mahayana Buddhists as Sangharama Bodhisattva () a heavenly protector of the Buddhist dharma. "Sangharama" in Sanskrit means 'community garden' ("sangha", community + "arama", garden) and thus 'monastery'. The term "Sangharama" also refer to the dharmapala class of devas and spirits assigned to guard the Buddhist monastery, the dharma, and the faith itself. Over time and as an act of syncreticism, Guan Yu was seen as the representative guardian of the temple and the garden in which it stands. His statue traditionally is situated in the far left of the main altar, opposite his counterpart Skanda.


title: Guan Yu

text: According to Buddhist legends, in 592, Guan Yu manifested himself one night before the Chan master Zhiyi, the founder of the Tiantai school of Buddhism, along with a retinue of spiritual beings. Zhiyi was then in deep meditation on Jade Spring Hill () when he was distracted by Guan Yu's presence. Guan Yu then requested the master to teach him about the dharma. After receiving Buddhist teachings from the master, Guan Yu took refuge in the triple gems and also requested the Five Precepts. Henceforth, it is said that Guan Yu made a vow to become a guardian of temples and the dharma. Legends also claim that Guan Yu assisted Zhiyi in the construction of the Yuquan Temple, which still stands today.


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu appears in Chinese operas such as "Huarong Trail", "Red Cliffs", and other excerpts from "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". His costume is a green military opera uniform with armour covering his right arm and the knees of his pants. The actor's face is painted red with a few black lines, to represent honour and courage. He also wears a long three-section black beard made of yak hair and carries the Green Dragon Crescent Blade. Traditionally, after the show ends, the actor has to wash his face, burn joss paper, light incense, and pray to Chinese deities.


title: Guan Yu

text: Notable actors who have portrayed Guan Yu in film and television include: Lu Shuming in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (1994); Wang Yingquan in "The Legend of Guan Gong" (2004); Ti Lung in "" (2008); Ba Sen in "Red Cliff" (2008–2009); Yu Rongguang in "Three Kingdoms" (2010); Donnie Yen in "The Lost Bladesman" (2011); Au Sui-Wai in "Three Kingdoms RPG" (2012); Han Geng in "Dynasty Warriors" (2019).


title: Guan Yu

text: Films which make references to Guan Yu include: Stephen Chow's comedy film "From Beijing with Love" (1994), which, in one scene, refers to the story of Hua Tuo performing surgery on Guan Yu's arm; Zhang Yimou's "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles" (2005), in which the fictional story of Guan Yu slaying six generals and crossing five passes forms a major part of the narrative; the horror comedy film "My Name Is Bruce" (2007), where Guan Yu's vengeful spirit is accidentally set free by a group of teenagers and he begins to terrorise their town.


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu appears as a playable character in many video games based on "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" which are produced by Koei, including: the strategy game series of the same title as the novel; the action game series "Dynasty Warriors" and "Warriors Orochi". Other non-Koei titles in which he also appears include: ""; " "Puzzle & Dragons"; "Sango Fighter"; "Destiny of an Emperor"; and "Atlantica Online". He is also referenced in "", "Titan Quest", and "Koihime Musō".


title: Guan Yu

text: The hero Jiang Jun that appears in an add-on for the game "For Honor", developed by Ubisoft Montreal, is heavily based on Guan Yu. He is introduced in the 2018 DLC "Marching Fire Expansion", along with the other characters from the Chinese Wulin faction. The Jiang Jun wields Guan Yu's signature Guandao weapon and is portrayed as a wise older general.


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu is referenced in the 2020 game "Hades" by Supergiant Games. The final "aspect", or form, unlocked for the Eternal Spear weapon is the Aspect of Guan Yu, the Frost Fair Blade, which resembles an ornamented Guandao. The Eternal Spear is said to be the same spear wielded by Guan Yu in the future, taking this form.


title: Guan Yu

text: Guan Yu is a popular motif in collector coins series featuring Ancient warriors. The Polish Mint issued a 2oz silver coin featuring him in 2019, and another one in 2021.


title: Guan Yu

text: During the course of price liberalization debates as part of China's reform and opening up, Deng Xiaoping invoked the fictitious story of Guan Yu crossing five passes and slaying six generals (as described in the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms") as part of his rhetoric. "To the Chinese audience familiar with the famous tale of Lord Guan, there could have been no doubt of Deng's determination to push ahead with radical price reforms." As Deng explained in 1986 to a North Korean delegation:


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon, originally titled The Brothel of Avignon) is a large oil painting created in 1907 by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. The work, part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, portrays five nude female prostitutes in a brothel on Carrer d'Avinyó, a street in Barcelona, Spain. Each figure is depicted in a disconcerting confrontational manner and none is conventionally feminine. The women appear slightly menacing and are rendered with angular and disjointed body shapes. The figure on the left exhibits facial features and dress of Egyptian or southern Asian style. The two adjacent figures are shown in the Iberian style of Picasso's native Spain, while the two on the right are shown with African mask-like features. The ethnic primitivism evoked in these masks, according to Picasso, moved him to "liberate an utterly original artistic style of compelling, even savage force."


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: In this adaptation of primitivism and abandonment of perspective in favor of a flat, two-dimensional picture plane, Picasso makes a radical departure from traditional European painting. This proto-cubist work is widely considered to be seminal in the early development of both cubism and modern art.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: "Les Demoiselles" was revolutionary and controversial and led to widespread anger and disagreement, even amongst the painter's closest associates and friends. Matisse considered the work something of a bad joke yet indirectly reacted to it in his 1908 "Bathers with a Turtle". Georges Braque too initially disliked the painting yet perhaps more than anyone else, studied the work in great detail. His subsequent friendship and collaboration with Picasso led to the cubist revolution. Its resemblance to Cézanne's "The Bathers," Paul Gauguin's statue "Oviri" and El Greco's "Opening of the Fifth Seal" has been widely discussed by later critics.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: At the time of its first exhibition in 1916, the painting was deemed immoral. The work, painted in Picasso's studio in the Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre, Paris, was seen publicly for the first time at the Salon d'Antin in July 1916, at an exhibition organized by the poet André Salmon. It was at this exhibition that Salmon (who had previously titled the painting in 1912 "Le bordel philosophique") renamed the work its current, less scandalous title, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", instead of the title originally chosen by Picasso, "Le Bordel d'Avignon". Picasso, who always referred to it as "mon bordel" ("my brothel"), or "Le Bordel d'Avignon", never liked Salmon's title and would have instead preferred the bowdlerization "Las chicas de Avignon" ("The Girls of Avignon").


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Picasso came into his own as an important artist during the first decade of the 20th century. He arrived in Paris from Spain around the turn of the century as a young, ambitious painter out to make a name for himself. For several years he alternated between living and working in Barcelona, Madrid and the Spanish countryside, and made frequent trips to Paris.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: By 1904, he was fully settled in Paris and had established several studios, important relationships with both friends and colleagues. Between 1901 and 1904, Picasso began to achieve recognition for his Blue Period paintings. In the main these were studies of poverty and desperation based on scenes he had seen in Spain and Paris at the turn of the century. Subjects included gaunt families, blind figures, and personal encounters; other paintings depicted his friends, but most reflected and expressed a sense of blueness and despair.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: He followed his success by developing into his Rose Period from 1904 to 1907, which introduced a strong element of sensuality and sexuality into his work. The Rose period depictions of acrobats, circus performers and theatrical characters are rendered in warmer, brighter colors and are far more hopeful and joyful in their depictions of the bohemian life in the Parisian avant-garde and its environs. The Rose period produced two important large masterpieces: "Family of Saltimbanques" (1905), which recalls the work of Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) and Édouard Manet (1832–1883); and "Boy Leading a Horse" (1905–06), which recalls Cézanne's "Bather" (1885–1887) and El Greco's "Saint Martin and the Beggar" (1597–1599). While he already had a considerable following by the middle of 1906, Picasso enjoyed further success with his paintings of massive oversized nude women, monumental sculptural figures that recalled the work of Paul Gauguin and showed his interest in primitive (African, Micronesian, Native American) art. He began exhibiting his work in the galleries of Berthe Weill (1865–1951) and Ambroise Vollard (1866–1939), quickly gaining a growing reputation and a following amongst the artistic communities of Montmartre and Montparnasse.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Picasso became a favorite of the American art collectors Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo around 1905. The Steins' older brother Michael and his wife Sarah also became collectors of his work. Picasso painted portraits of both Gertrude Stein and her nephew Allan Stein.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Gertrude Stein began acquiring Picasso's drawings and paintings and exhibiting them in her informal "Salon" at her home in Paris. At one of her gatherings in 1905 he met Henri Matisse (1869–1954), who was to become in those days his chief rival, although in later years a close friend. The Steins introduced Picasso to Claribel Cone (1864–1929), and her sister Etta Cone (1870–1949), also American art collectors, who began to acquire Picasso and Matisse's paintings. Eventually Leo Stein moved to Italy, and Michael and Sarah Stein became important patrons of Matisse, while Gertrude Stein continued to collect Picasso.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: The Salon d'Automne of 1905 brought notoriety and attention to the works of Henri Matisse and the Les Fauves group. The latter gained their name after critic Louis Vauxcelles described their work with the phrase "Donatello chez les fauves" ("Donatello among the wild beasts"), contrasting the paintings with a Renaissance-type sculpture that shared the room with them. Henri Rousseau (1844–1910), an artist whom Picasso knew and admired and who was not a Fauve, had his large jungle scene "The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope" also hanging near the works by Matisse and which may have had an influence on the particular sarcastic term used in the press. Vauxcelles' comment was printed on 17 October 1905 in the daily newspaper "Gil Blas", and passed into popular usage.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Although the pictures were widely derided—"A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public", declared the critic Camille Mauclair (1872–1945)—they also attracted some favorable attention. The painting that was singled out for the most attacks was Matisse's "Woman with a Hat"; the purchase of this work by Gertrude and Leo Stein had a very positive effect on Matisse, who was suffering demoralization from the bad reception of his work.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Matisse's notoriety and preeminence as the leader of the new movement in modern painting continued to build throughout 1906 and 1907, and Matisse attracted a following of artists including Georges Braque (1880–1963), André Derain (1880–1954), Maurice de Vlaminck (1876–1958). Picasso's work had passed through his Blue period and his Rose period and while he had a considerable following his reputation was tame in comparison to his rival Matisse. The larger theme of Matisse's influential "Le bonheur de vivre", an exploration of "The Golden Age", evokes the historic "Ages of Man" theme and the potentials of a provocative new age that the twentieth century era offered. An equally bold, similarly themed painting titled "The Golden Age", completed by Derain in 1905, shows the transfer of human ages in an even more direct way.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Matisse and Derain shocked the French public again at the March 1907 Société des Artistes Indépendants when Matisse exhibited his painting "Blue Nude" and Derain contributed "The Bathers". Both paintings evoke ideas of human origins (world beginnings, evolution) an increasingly important theme in Paris at this time. The "Blue Nude" was one of the paintings that would later create an international sensation at the Armory Show of 1913 in New York City.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: From October 1906 when he began preparatory work for "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", until its completion in March 1907, Picasso was vying with Matisse to be perceived as the leader of Modern painting. Upon its completion the shock and the impact of the painting propelled Picasso into the center of controversy and all but knocked Matisse and Fauvism off the map, virtually ending the movement by the following year. In 1907 Picasso joined the art gallery that had recently been opened in Paris by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1884–1979). Kahnweiler was a German art historian and collector who became one of the premier French art dealers of the 20th century. He became prominent in Paris beginning in 1907 for being among the first champions of Picasso, and especially his painting "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon". Before 1910 Picasso was already being recognized as one of the important leaders of Modern art alongside Henri Matisse, who had been the undisputed leader of Fauvism and who was more than ten years older than he, and his contemporaries the Fauvist André Derain and the former Fauvist and fellow Cubist, Georges Braque.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: After the impact of "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", however, Matisse was never again mistaken for an avant-garde incendiary. With the bizarre painting that appalled and electrified the cognoscenti, which understood the "Les Demoiselles" was at once a response to Matisse's "Le bonheur de vivre" (1905–1906) and an assault upon the tradition from which it derived, Picasso effectively appropriated the role of avant-garde "wild beast"—a role that, as far as public opinion was concerned, he was never to relinquish.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Whereas Matisse had drawn upon a long tradition of European painting—from Giorgione, Poussin, and Watteau to Ingres, Cézanne, and Gauguin—to create a modern version of a pastoral paradise in "Le bonheur de vivre", Picasso had turned to an alien tradition of primitive art to create in "Les Demoiselles" a netherworld of strange gods and violent emotions. As between the mythological nymphs of "Le bonheur de vivre" and the grotesque effigies of "Les Demoiselles," there was no question as to which was the more shocking or more intended to be shocking. Picasso had unleashed a vein of feeling that was to have immense consequences for the art and culture of the modern era while Matisse's ambition came to seem, as he said in his "Notes of a Painter," more "limited"—limited that is, to the realm of aesthetic pleasure. There was thus opened up, in the very first decade of the century and in the work of its two greatest artists, the chasm that has continued to divide the art of the modern era down to our own time.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Picasso created hundreds of sketches and studies in preparation for the final work. He long acknowledged the importance of Spanish art and Iberian sculpture as influences on the painting. The work is believed by critics to be influenced by African tribal masks and the art of Oceania, although Picasso denied the connection; many art historians remain skeptical about his denials. Picasso spent an October 1906 evening closely studying a Teke figure from Congo then owned by Matisse. It was later that night that Picasso's first studies for what would become "Les Demoiselles d’Avignon" were created. Several experts maintain that, at the very least, Picasso visited the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro (known later as the Musée de l'Homme) in the spring of 1907 where he saw and sought inspiration from African and other arts shortly before completing "Les Demoiselles." He had come to this museum originally to study plaster casts of medieval sculptures, then also considered examples of "primitive" art.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: In 1907, when Picasso began work on "Les Demoiselles", one of the old master painters he greatly admired was El Greco (1541–1614), who at the time was largely obscure and under-appreciated. Picasso's friend Ignacio Zuloaga (1870–1945) acquired El Greco's masterpiece, the "Opening of the Fifth Seal", in 1897 for 1000 pesetas. The relation between "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" and the "Opening of the Fifth Seal" was pinpointed in the early 1980s, when the stylistic similarities and the relationship between the motifs and visually identifying qualities of both works were analyzed.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: El Greco's painting, which Picasso studied repeatedly in Zuloaga's house, inspired not only the size, format, and composition of "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", but also its apocalyptic power. Later, speaking of the work to Dor de la Souchère in Antibes, Picasso said: "In any case, only the execution counts. From this point of view, it is correct to say that Cubism has a Spanish origin and that I invented Cubism. We must look for the Spanish influence in Cézanne. Things themselves necessitate it, the influence of El Greco, a Venetian painter, on him. But his structure is Cubist."


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: The relationship of the painting to other group portraits in the Western tradition, such as "Diana and Callisto" by Titian (1488–1576), and the same subject by Rubens (1577–1640), in the Prado, has also been discussed.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Both Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) and Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) were accorded major posthumous retrospective exhibitions at the Salon d'Automne in Paris between 1903 and 1907, and both were important influences on Picasso and instrumental to his creation of "Les Demoiselles." According to the English art historian, collector and author of "The Cubist Epoch", Douglas Cooper, both of those artists were particularly influential to the formation of Cubism and especially important to the paintings of Picasso during 1906 and 1907. Cooper goes on to say however "Les Demoiselles" is often erroneously referred to as the first Cubist painting. He explains,


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: The "Demoiselles" is generally referred to as the first Cubist picture. This is an exaggeration, for although it was a major first step towards Cubism it is not yet Cubist. The disruptive, expressionist element in it is even contrary to the spirit of Cubism, which looked at the world in a detached, realistic spirit. Nevertheless, the "Demoiselles" is the logical picture to take as the starting point for Cubism, because it marks the birth of a new pictorial idiom, because in it Picasso violently overturned established conventions and because all that followed grew out of it.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Although not well known to the general public prior to 1906, Cézanne's reputation was highly regarded in avant-garde circles, as evidenced by Ambroise Vollard's interest in showing and collecting his work, and by Leo Stein's interest. Picasso was familiar with much of Cézanne's work that he saw at Vollard's gallery and at the Stein's. After Cézanne died in 1906, his paintings were exhibited in Paris in a large scale museum-like retrospective in September 1907. The 1907 Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d'Automne greatly impacted the direction that the avant-garde in Paris took, lending credence to his position as one of the most influential artists of the 19th century and to the advent of Cubism. The 1907 Cézanne exhibition was enormously influential in establishing Cézanne as an important painter whose ideas were particularly resonant especially to young artists in Paris.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Both Picasso and Braque found the inspiration for their proto-Cubist works in Paul Cézanne, who said to observe and learn to see and treat nature as if it were composed of basic shapes like "cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones." Cézanne's explorations of geometric simplification and optical phenomena inspired Picasso, Braque, Metzinger, Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Le Fauconnier, Gris and others to experiment with ever more complex multiple views of the same subject, and, eventually to the fracturing of form. Cézanne thus sparked one of the most revolutionary areas of artistic enquiry of the 20th century, one which was to affect profoundly the development of modern art.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the European cultural elite were discovering African, Oceanic and Native American art. Artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse and Picasso were intrigued and inspired by the stark power and simplicity of styles of those cultures. Around 1906, Picasso, Matisse, Derain and other artists in Paris had acquired an interest in primitivism, Iberian sculpture, African art and tribal masks, in part because of the compelling works of Paul Gauguin that had suddenly achieved center stage in the avant-garde circles of Paris. Gauguin's powerful posthumous retrospective exhibitions at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1903 and an even larger one in 1906 had a stunning and powerful influence on Picasso's paintings.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: In the autumn of 1906, Picasso followed his previous successes with paintings of oversized nude women, and monumental sculptural figures that recalled the work of Paul Gauguin and showed his interest in primitive art. Pablo Picasso's paintings of massive figures from 1906 were directly influenced by Gauguin's sculpture, painting and his writing as well. The savage power evoked by Gauguin's work lead directly to "Les Demoiselles" in 1907.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: According to Gauguin biographer David Sweetman, Pablo Picasso as early as 1902 became an aficionado of Gauguin's work when he met and befriended the expatriate Spanish sculptor and ceramist Paco Durrio, in Paris. Durrio had several of Gauguin's works on hand because he was a friend of Gauguin's and an unpaid agent of his work. Durrio tried to help his poverty-stricken friend in Tahiti by promoting his oeuvre in Paris. After they met Durrio introduced Picasso to Gauguin's stoneware, helped Picasso make some ceramic pieces and gave Picasso a first "La Plume" edition of "Noa Noa: The Tahiti Journal of Paul Gauguin."


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: The 1906 exhibition of Gauguin's work left Picasso more than ever in this artist's thrall. Gauguin demonstrated the most disparate types of art—not to speak of elements from metaphysics, ethnology, symbolism, the Bible, classical myths, and much else besides—could be combined into a synthesis that was of its time yet timeless. An artist could also confound conventional notions of beauty, he demonstrated, by harnessing his demons to the dark gods (not necessarily Tahitian ones) and tapping a new source of divine energy. If in later years Picasso played down his debt to Gauguin, there is no doubt that between 1905 and 1907 he felt a very close kinship with this other Paul, who prided himself on Spanish genes inherited from his Peruvian grandmother. Had not Picasso signed himself 'Paul' in Gauguin's honor.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Both David Sweetman and John Richardson point to Gauguin's "Oviri" (literally meaning 'savage'), a gruesome phallic representation of the Tahitian goddess of life and death intended for Gauguin's grave. First exhibited in the 1906 retrospective, it was likely a direct influence on "Les Demoiselles." Sweetman writes,


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Gauguin's statue "Oviri", which was prominently displayed in 1906, was to stimulate Picasso's interest in both sculpture and ceramics, while the woodcuts would reinforce his interest in print-making, though it was the element of the primitive in all of them which most conditioned the direction that Picasso's art would take. This interest would culminate in the seminal "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon".


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Picasso's interest in stoneware was further stimulated by the examples he saw at the 1906 Gauguin retrospective at the Salon d'Automne. The most disturbing of those ceramics (one that Picasso might have already seen at Vollard's) was the gruesome "Oviri." Until 1987, when the Musée d'Orsay acquired this little-known work (exhibited only once since 1906) it had never been recognized as the masterpiece it is, let alone recognized for its relevance to the works leading up to the "Demoiselles." Although just under 30 inches high, "Oviri" has an awesome presence, as befits a monument intended for Gauguin's grave. Picasso was very struck by "Oviri." 50 years later he was delighted when [Douglas] Cooper and I told him that we had come upon this sculpture in a collection that also included the original plaster of his Cubist head. Has it been a revelation, like Iberian sculpture? Picasso's shrug was grudgingly affirmative. He was always loath to admit Gauguin's role in setting him on the road to primitivism.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: During the 19th and 20th centuries, Europe's colonization of Africa led to many economic, social, political, and even artistic encounters. From these encounters, Western visual artists became increasingly interested in the unique forms of African art, particularly masks from the Niger-Congo region. In an essay by Dennis Duerden, author of "African Art" (1968), "The Invisible Present" (1972), and a former director of the BBC World Service, the mask is defined as "very often a complete head-dress and not just that part that conceals the face". This form of visual art and image appealed to Western visual artists, leading to what Duerden calls the "discovery" of African art by Western practitioners, including Picasso.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: The stylistic sources for the heads of the women and their degree of influence has been much discussed and debated, in particular the influence of African tribal masks, art of Oceania, and pre-Roman Iberian sculptures. The rounded contours of the features of the three women to the left can be related to Iberian sculpture, but not obviously the fragmented planes of the two on the right, which indeed seem influenced by African masks. Lawrence Weschler says that, in many ways, much of the moldering cultural and even scientific ferment that characterized the first decade and a half of the twentieth century and that laid the foundations for much of what we today consider modern can be traced back to ways in which Europe was already wrestling with its bad-faith, often strenuously repressed, knowledge of what it had been doing in Africa. The example of Picasso virtually launching cubism with his 1907 "Desmoiselles d’Avignon", in response to the sorts of African masks and other colonial booty he was encountering in Paris’s Musee de l’Homme, is obvious.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Private collections and illustrated books featuring African art in this period were also important. While Picasso emphatically denied the influence of African masks on the painting: "African art? Never heard of it!" ("L'art nègre? Connais pas!"), this is belied by his deep interest in the African sculptures owned by Matisse and his close friend Guiliaume Apollinaire. Since none of the African masks once thought to have influenced Picasso in this painting were available in Paris at the time work was painted, he is thought now to have studied African mask forms in an illustrated volume by anthropologist Leo Frobenius. Primitivism continues in his work during, before and after the painting of "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," from spring 1906 through the spring of 1907. Influences from ancient Iberian sculpture are also important. Some Iberian reliefs from Osuna, then only recently excavated, were on display in the Louvre from 1904. Archaic Greek sculpture has also been claimed as an influence.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: The influence of African sculpture became an issue in 1939, when Alfred Barr claimed that the primitivism of the "Demoiselles" derived from the art of Côte d'Ivoire and the French Congo. Picasso insisted that the editor of his "catalogue raissonne", Christian Zervos, publish a disclaimer: the "Demoiselles", he said, owed nothing to African art, everything to the reliefs from Osuna that he had seen in the Louvre a year or so before. Nonetheless, he is known to have seen African tribal masks while working on the painting, during a visit to the Ethnographic Museum of the Trocadero with Andre Malraux in March 1907, about which he later said "When I went to the Trocadero, it was disgusting. The flea market, the smell. I was all alone. I wanted to get away, but I didn't leave. I stayed, I stayed. I understood that it was very important. Something was happening to me, right. The masks weren't like any other pieces of sculpture, not at all. They were magic things." Maurice de Vlaminck is often credited with introducing Picasso to African sculpture of Fang extraction in 1904.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Picasso biographer John Richardson recounts in "A Life of Picasso, The Cubist Rebel 1907–1916," art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler's recollection of his first visit to Picasso's studio in July 1907. Kahnweiler remembers seeing "dusty stacks of canvases" in Picasso's studio and "African sculptures of majestic severity". Richardson comments: "so much for Picasso's story that he was not yet aware of Tribal art.'" A photograph of Picasso in his studio surrounded by African sculptures c.1908, is found on page 27 of that same volume.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Suzanne Preston Blier says that, like Gauguin and several other artists in this era, Picasso used illustrated books for many of his preliminary studies for this painting. In addition to the Frobenius book, his sources included a 1906 publication of a twelfth-century Medieval art manuscript on architectural sculpture by Villiard de Honnecourt and a book by Carl Heinrich Stratz of pseudo-pornography showing photos and drawings of women from around the world organized to evoke ideas of human origins and evolution. Blier suggests that this helps account for the diversity of styles Picasso employed in his image-filled sketchbooks for this painting. These books, and other sources such as cartoons, Blier writes, also offer hints as to the larger meaning of this painting.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Maurice Princet, a French mathematician and actuary, played a role in the birth of Cubism as an associate of Pablo Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Jean Metzinger, Robert Delaunay, Juan Gris and later Marcel Duchamp. Princet became known as "le mathématicien du cubisme" ("the mathematician of cubism").


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Princet is credited with introducing the work of Henri Poincaré and the concept of the "fourth dimension" to artists at the Bateau-Lavoir. Princet brought to the attention of Picasso, Metzinger and others, a book by Esprit Jouffret, "Traité élémentaire de géométrie à quatre dimensions" ("Elementary Treatise on the Geometry of Four Dimensions", 1903), a popularization of Poincaré's "Science and Hypothesis" in which Jouffret described hypercubes and other complex polyhedra in four dimensions and projected them onto the two-dimensional surface. Picasso's sketchbooks for "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" illustrate Jouffret's influence on the artist's work.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Although "Les Demoiselles" had an enormous and profound influence on modern art, its impact was not immediate, and the painting stayed in Picasso's studio for many years. At first, only Picasso's intimate circle of artists, dealers, collectors and friends were aware of the work. Soon after the late summer of 1907, Picasso and his long-time lover Fernande Olivier (1881–1966) had a parting of the ways. The re-painting of the two heads on the far right of "Les Demoiselles" fueled speculation that it was an indication of the split between Picasso and Olivier. Although they later reunited for a period, the relationship ended in 1912.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: A photograph of the "Les Demoiselles" was first published in an article by Gelett Burgess entitled "The Wild Men of Paris, Matisse, Picasso and Les Fauves", "The Architectural Record", May 1910.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: "Les Demoiselles" would not be exhibited until 1916, and not widely recognized as a revolutionary achievement until the early 1920s, when André Breton (1896–1966) published the work. The painting was reproduced again in "Cahiers d'art" (1927), within an article dedicated to African art.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Richardson goes on to say that Matisse was fighting mad upon seeing the "Demoiselles" at Picasso's studio. He let it be known that he regarded the painting as an attempt to ridicule the modern movement; he was outraged to find his sensational "Blue Nude," not to speak of "Bonheur de vivre," overtaken by Picasso's "hideous" whores. He vowed to get even and make Picasso beg for mercy. Just as the "Bonheur de vivre" had fueled Picasso's competitiveness, "Les Demoiselles" now fueled Matisse's.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Among Picasso's closed circle of friends and colleagues there was a mixture of opinions about "Les Demoiselles". Georges Braque and André Derain were both initially troubled by it although they were supportive of Picasso. According to William Rubin, two of Picasso's friends, the art critic André Salmon and the painter Ardengo Soffici (1879–1964), were enthusiastic about it while Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) wasn't. Both the art dealer-collector Wilhelm Uhde (1874–1947), and Kahnweiler were more enthusiastic about the painting however.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: From 16 to 31 July 1916 "Les Demoiselles" was exhibited to the public for the first time at the Salon d'Antin, an exhibition organized by André Salmon titled "L'Art moderne en France". The exhibition space at 26 rue d'Antin was lent by the famous couturier and art collector Paul Poiret. The larger Salon d'Automne and Salon des Indépendants had been closed due to World War I, making this the only Cubists' exhibition in France since 1914. On 23 July 1916 a review was published in "Le Cri de Paris":


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: The Cubists are not waiting for the war to end to recommence hostilities against good sense. They are exhibiting at the Galerie Poiret naked women whose scattered parts are represented in all four corners of the canvas: here an eye, there an ear, over there a hand, a foot on top, a mouth below. M. Picasso, their leader, is possibly the least disheveled of the lot. He has painted, or rather daubed, five women who are, if the truth be told, all hacked up, and yet their limbs somehow manage to hold together. They have, moreover, piggish faces with eyes wandering negligently above their ears. An enthusiastic art-lover offered the artist 20,000 francs for this masterpiece. M. Picasso wanted more. The art-lover did not insist.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Picasso referred to his only entry at the Salon d'Antin as his Brothel painting calling it "Le Bordel d'Avignon" but André Salmon who had originally labeled the work, "Le Bordel Philosophique," retitled it "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" so as to lessen its scandalous impact on the public. Picasso never liked the title, however, preferring "las chicas de Avignon", but Salmon's title stuck. Leo Steinberg labels his essays on the painting after its original title. According to Suzanne Preston Blier, the word "bordel" in the painting's title, rather than evoking a house of prostitution ("une maison close") instead more accurately references in French a complex situation or mess. This painting, Blier says, explores not prostitution per se, but instead sex and motherhood more generally, along with the complexities of evolution in the colonial multi-racial world. The name "Avignon", scholars argue, not only references the street where Picasso once bought his paint supplies (which had a few brothels), but also the home of Max Jacob's grandmother, whom Picasso jocularly identifies as one of the painting's diverse modern day subjects.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: The only other time the painting might have been exhibited to the public prior to a 1937 showing in New York was in 1918, in an exhibition dedicated to Picasso and Matisse at Galerie Paul Guillaume in Paris, though very little information exists about this exhibition or the presence (if at all) of "Les Demoiselles".


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Afterwards, the painting was rolled up and remained with Picasso until 1924 when, with urging and help from Breton and Louis Aragon (1897–1982), he sold it to designer Jacques Doucet (1853–1929), for 25,000 francs.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Picasso drew each of the figures in "Les Demoiselles" differently. The woman pulling the curtain on the upper right is rendered with heavy paint. Composed of sharp geometric shapes, her head is the most strictly Cubist of all five. The curtain seems to blend partially into her body. The Cubist head of the crouching figure (lower right) underwent at least two revisions from an Iberian figure to its current state. She also seems to have been drawn from two different perspectives at once, creating a confusing, twisted figure. The woman above her is rather manly, with a dark face and square chest. The whole picture is in a two-dimensional style, with an abandoned perspective.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Much of the critical debate that has taken place over the years centers on attempting to account for this multiplicity of styles within the work. The dominant understanding for over five decades, espoused most notably by Alfred Barr, the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and organizer of major career retrospectives for the artist, has been that it can be interpreted as evidence of a transitional period in Picasso's art, an effort to connect his earlier work to Cubism, the style he would help invent and develop over the next five or six years. Suzanne Preston Blier says that the divergent styles of the painting were added intentionally to convey to each women art “style” attributes from the five geographic areas each woman represents.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Art critic John Berger, in his controversial 1965 biography "The Success and Failure of Picasso", interprets "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" as the provocation that led to Cubism:


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: In 1972, art critic Leo Steinberg in his essay "The Philosophical Brothel" posited a wholly different explanation for the wide range of stylistic attributes. Using the earlier sketches—which had been ignored by most critics—he argued that far from evidence of an artist undergoing a rapid stylistic metamorphosis, the variety of styles can be read as a deliberate attempt, a careful plan, to capture the gaze of the viewer. He notes that the five women all seem eerily disconnected, indeed wholly unaware of each other. Rather, they focus solely on the viewer, their divergent styles only furthering the intensity of their glare.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: The earliest sketches feature two men inside the brothel; a sailor and a medical student (who was often depicted holding either a book or a skull, causing Barr and others to read the painting as a memento mori, a reminder of death). A trace of their presence at a table in the center remains: the jutting edge of a table near the bottom of the canvas. The viewer, Steinberg says, has come to replace the sitting men, forced to confront the gaze of prostitutes head on, invoking readings far more complex than a simple allegory or the autobiographical reading that attempts to understand the work in relation to Picasso's own history with women. A world of meanings then becomes possible, suggesting the work as a meditation on the danger of sex, the "trauma of the gaze" (to use a phrase of Rosalind Krauss's invention), and the threat of violence inherent in the scene and sexual relations at large.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: According to Steinberg, the reversed gaze, that is, the fact that the figures look directly at the viewer, as well as the idea of the self-possessed woman, no longer there solely for the pleasure of the male gaze, may be traced back to Manet's "Olympia" of 1863. William Rubin (1927–2006), the former Director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA wrote that "Steinberg was the first writer to come to grips with the sexual subject of the Demoiselles."


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: A few years after writing "The Philosophical Brothel", Steinberg wrote further about the revolutionary nature of "Les Demoiselles":


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Picasso was resolved to undo the continuities of form and field which Western art had so long taken for granted. The famous stylistic rupture at right turned out to be merely a consummation. Overnight, the contrived coherences of representational art - the feigned unities of time and place, the stylistic consistencies - all were declared to be fictional. The "Demoiselles" confessed itself a picture conceived in duration and delivered in spasms. In this one work Picasso discovered that the demands of discontinuity could be met on multiple levels: by cleaving depicted flesh; by elision of limbs and abbreviation; by slashing the web of connecting space; by abrupt changes of vantage; and by a sudden stylistic shift at the climax. Finally, the insistent staccato of the presentation was found to intensify the picture's address and symbolic charge: the beholder, instead of observing a roomfuI of lazing whores, is targeted from all sides. So far from suppressing the subject, the mode of organization heightens its flagrant eroticism.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: At the end of the first volume of his (so far) three volume Picasso biography: "A Life Of Picasso. The Prodigy, 1881–1906," John Richardson comments on "Les Demoiselles." Richardson says:


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: It is at this point, the beginning of 1907, that I propose to bring this first volume to an end. The 25-year-old Picasso is about to conjure up a quintet of Dionysiac "Demoiselles" on his huge new canvas. The execution of this painting would make a dramatic climax to these pages. However, it would imply that Picasso's great revolutionary work constitutes a conclusion to all that has gone before. It does not. For all that the "Demoiselles" is rooted in Picasso's past, not to speak of such precursors as the Iron Age Iberians, El Greco, Gauguin and Cézanne, it is essentially a beginning: the most innovative painting since Giotto. As we will see in the next volume, it established a new pictorial syntax; it enabled people to perceive things with new eyes, new minds, new awareness. "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" is the first unequivocally 20th-century masterpiece, a principal detonator of the modern movement, the cornerstone of 20th-century art. For Picasso it would also be a rite of passage: what he called an exorcism.' It cleared the way for cubism. It likewise banished the artist's demons. Later, these demons would return and require further exorcism. For the next decade, however, Picasso would feel as free and creative and 'as overworked' as God.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Suzanne Preston Blier addresses the history and meaning of "Les Demoiselles d’Avignon" in a 2019 book in a different way, one that draws on her African art expertise and an array of newly discovered sources she unearthed. Blier addresses the painting not as a simple bordello scene but as Picasso's interpretation of the diversity of women from around the world that Picasso encountered in part through photographs and sculptures seen in illustrated books. These representations, Blier argues, are central to understanding the painting's creation and help identify the demoiselles as global figures – mothers, grandmothers, lovers, and sisters, living the colonial world Picasso inhabited. She says that Picasso has reunited these diverse women together in this strange cave-like (and womb-resembling) setting as a kind of global "time machine" – each woman referencing a different era, place of origins, and concomitant artistic style, as part of the broader ages of man them important to the new century, in which core themes of evolution took on an increasingly important role. The two men (a sailor and a doctor) depicted in some of the painting's earlier preparatory drawings, Blier suggests, likely represent the male authors of two of the illustrated books that Picasso employed – the anthropologist Leo Frobenius as sailor, one travels the world to. explore various ports of call and the Vienna medical doctor, Karl Heinrich Stratz who holds a human skull or book consistent with the detailed anatomical studies that he provides.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Blier is able to date the painting to late March 1907 directly following the opening of the Salon des Independents where Matisse and Derain had exhibited their own bold, emotionally charged "origins"-themed tableaux. The large scale of the canvas, Blier says, complements the important scientific and historical theme. The reunion of the mothers of each "race" within this human evolutionary framework, Blier maintains, also constitutes the larger "philosophy" behind the painting's original "le bordel philosophique" title – evoking the potent "mess" and "complex situation" ("le bordel") that Picasso was exploring in this work. In contrast to Leo Steinberg and William Rubin who argued that Picasso had effaced the two right hand demoiselles to repaint their faces with African masks in response to a crisis stemming from larger fears of death or women, an early photograph of the painting in Picasso's studio, Blier shows, indicates that the artist had portrayed African masks on these women from the outset consistent with their identities as progenitors of these races. Blier argues that the painting was largely completed in a single night following a debate about philosophy with friends at a local Paris brasserie.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Jacques Doucet had seen the painting at the Salon d'Antin, yet remarkably seems to have purchased "Les Demoiselles" without asking Picasso to unroll it in his studio so that he could see it again. André Breton later described the transaction:


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: I remember the day he bought the painting from Picasso, who strange as it may seem, appeared to be intimidated by Doucet and even offered no resistance when the price was set at 25,000 francs: "Well then, it's agreed, M. Picasso." Doucet then said: "You shall receive 2,000 francs per month, beginning next month, until the sum of 25,000 francs is reached.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: Ultimately, it seems Doucet paid 30,000 francs rather than the agreed price. A few months after the purchase Doucet had the painting appraised at between 250,000 and 300,000 francs. Richardson speculates that Picasso, who by 1924 was on the top of the art world and didn't need to sell the painting to Doucet, did so and at that low price because Doucet promised "Les Demoiselles" would go to the Louvre in his will. However, after Doucet died in 1929 he did not leave the painting to the Louvre in his will, and it was sold like most of Doucet's collection through private dealers.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: In November 1937 the Jacques Seligman & Co. art gallery in New York City held an exhibition titled "20 Years in the Evolution of Picasso, 1903–1923" that included "Les Demoiselles." The Museum of Modern Art acquired the painting for $24,000. The museum raised $18,000 toward the purchase price by selling a Degas painting and the rest came from donations from the co-owners of the gallery Germain Seligman and Cesar de Hauke.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: The Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted an important Picasso exhibition on 15 November 1939 that remained on view until 7 January 1940. The exhibition, entitled "Picasso: 40 Years of His Art", was organized by Alfred H. Barr (1902–1981), in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition contained 344 works, including the major and then newly painted "Guernica" and its studies, as well as "Les Demoiselles."


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: In July 2007, "Newsweek" published a two-page article about "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" describing it as the "most influential work of art of the last 100 years". Art critic Holland Cotter argued that Picasso "changed history with this work. He'd replaced the benign ideal of the Classical nude with a new race of sexually armed and dangerous beings."


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: The painting is prominently featured in the 1993 Steve Martin play "Picasso at the Lapin Agile," about a fictional meeting of the young Picasso and Albert Einstein in a Paris cafe, and in the 2018 season of the television series "Genius," which focuses on Picasso's life and work.


title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

text: In 2003, an examination of the painting by x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy performed by conservators at the Museum of Modern Art confirmed the presence of the following pigments: lead white, bone black, vermilion, cadmium yellow, cobalt blue, emerald green, and native earth pigments (such as brown ochre) that contain iron.


title: Combination

text: In mathematics, a combination is a selection of items from a set that has distinct members, such that the order of selection does not matter (unlike permutations). For example, given three fruits, say an apple, an orange and a pear, there are three combinations of two that can be drawn from this set: an apple and a pear; an apple and an orange; or a pear and an orange. More formally, a "k"-combination of a set "S" is a subset of "k" distinct elements of "S". So, two combinations are identical if and only if each combination has the same members. (The arrangement of the members in each set does not matter.) If the set has "n" elements, the number of "k"-combinations, denoted as formula_1, is equal to the binomial coefficient


title: Combination

text: which can be written using factorials as formula_3 whenever formula_4, and which is zero when formula_5. This formula can be derived from the fact that each "k"-combination of a set "S" of "n" members has formula_6 permutations so formula_7 or formula_8. The set of all "k"-combinations of a set "S" is often denoted by formula_9.


title: Combination

text: A combination is a combination of "n" things taken "k" at a time "without repetition". To refer to combinations in which repetition is allowed, the terms "k"-selection, "k"-multiset, or "k"-combination with repetition are often used. If, in the above example, it were possible to have two of any one kind of fruit there would be 3 more 2-selections: one with two apples, one with two oranges, and one with two pears.


title: Combination

text: Although the set of three fruits was small enough to write a complete list of combinations, this becomes impractical as the size of the set increases. For example, a poker hand can be described as a 5-combination ("k" = 5) of cards from a 52 card deck ("n" = 52). The 5 cards of the hand are all distinct, and the order of cards in the hand does not matter. There are 2,598,960 such combinations, and the chance of drawing any one hand at random is 1 / 2,598,960.


title: Combination

text: The number of "k"-combinations from a given set "S" of "n" elements is often denoted in elementary combinatorics texts by formula_10, or by a variation such as formula_1, formula_12, formula_13, formula_14 or even formula_15 (the last form is standard in French, Romanian, Russian, Chinese and Polish texts). The same number however occurs in many other mathematical contexts, where it is denoted by formula_16 (often read as ""n" choose "k""); notably it occurs as a coefficient in the binomial formula, hence its name binomial coefficient. One can define formula_16 for all natural numbers "k" at once by the relation


title: Combination

text: To see that these coefficients count "k"-combinations from "S", one can first consider a collection of "n" distinct variables "X" labeled by the elements "s" of "S", and expand the product over all elements of "S":


title: Combination

text: it has 2 distinct terms corresponding to all the subsets of "S", each subset giving the product of the corresponding variables "X". Now setting all of the "X" equal to the unlabeled variable "X", so that the product becomes , the term for each "k"-combination from "S" becomes "X", so that the coefficient of that power in the result equals the number of such "k"-combinations.


title: Combination

text: Binomial coefficients can be computed explicitly in various ways. To get all of them for the expansions up to , one can use (in addition to the basic cases already given) the recursion relation


title: Combination

text: The numerator gives the number of "k"-permutations of "n", i.e., of sequences of "k" distinct elements of "S", while the denominator gives the number of such "k"-permutations that give the same "k"-combination when the order is ignored.


title: Combination

text: When "k" exceeds "n"/2, the above formula contains factors common to the numerator and the denominator, and canceling them out gives the relation


title: Combination

text: for 0 ≤ "k" ≤ "n". This expresses a symmetry that is evident from the binomial formula, and can also be understood in terms of "k"-combinations by taking the complement of such a combination, which is an -combination.


title: Combination

text: Finally there is a formula which exhibits this symmetry directly, and has the merit of being easy to remember:


title: Combination

text: where "n"<nowiki>!</nowiki> denotes the factorial of "n". It is obtained from the previous formula by multiplying denominator and numerator by !, so it is certainly computationally less efficient than that formula.


title: Combination

text: The last formula can be understood directly, by considering the "n"<nowiki>!</nowiki> permutations of all the elements of "S". Each such permutation gives a "k"-combination by selecting its first "k" elements. There are many duplicate selections: any combined permutation of the first "k" elements among each other, and of the final ("n" − "k") elements among each other produces the same combination; this explains the division in the formula.


title: Combination

text: From the above formulas follow relations between adjacent numbers in Pascal's triangle in all three directions: