Ever since the 15th century, when capitalism was growing, European art focused mainly on attaining a naturalistic depiction of the world, being an accurate representation of their environment, which was predominantly materialistic (Cohen, 60). European art then took a turn into modern art, provoked by Pablo Picasso. Born on October 25th, 1881, in Malaga, Picasso, perhaps the most famous artist of the 20th century, later passed away April 8th, 1973 in Paris (Cohen, 59). Pablo Picasso is notorious for being a ground-breaking, artistic mastermind. His unlimited imagination completed hundreds of art works, countless that stunned and motivated many in the artistic community. Picasso knew that to attain success and to exceed the leaders in history…show more content… It is considered to of created modern art and validates that he is a true mastermind driven by an intense passion. Picasso certainly planned for this art piece to be a ground-breaking declaration. He created this to prove to himself he was able to exceed past his equals. African art assisted Picasso to from abstract figures, being inspired when visiting the Trocadero Museum (Choen, 68). After Picasso viewed the exhibit it had an overwhelming effect on his art. As a replacement from his nude females, Picasso invented hostile, ridged figures with faces that looked like masks and contrasting from his works before he was unconcerned with all ideas of perspective. Evidently seen, this work includes several facets of African sculpture, with arms stretched above their heads, the contorted and enticing figures are made up of flat, fractured planes. The final illustrative uniformity, rich colours, and disjointed abstract shapes facilitated expressing early modernism. The figures in the painting project forward towards the observer. Two examples of African art that had inspired Picasso when creating Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon (Figure 1) are the Bakota Reliquary Figure (Figure 2) and the masks from the Dan people (Figure 3). Similar faces to masks from the Dan people can be recognized in the two right faces of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (figure 1) (Richardson). The Bakota Reliquary Figure guided the form and depth perception of the faces, providing them with emphasized rounded figures and similar forehead and eye shape. The paintings right two faces both have an elongated nose and chin with no lips, distinctive characteristics in African art. The figures have been condensed to abstract forms and have ridges lengthways their nose and face, creating flatness. There is no question that there are similarities between these three art