the human figure

In painting the human figure, twentieth-century artists have shown little concern for accurate anatomy. It is as though, having mastered the structure of the human body, they were content to turn it over to the photographer and to the medical profession, while they devote themselves to other aspects of man. Paul Gauguin painted figures in a manner akin to the flat profile rendering of ancient Egypt. He enriched his palette with the warm browns and dark greens that he saw on a visit to Tahiti, and in "The Market" he shows native women on a bench, their faces and figures, the background and trees rendered in fiat areas of color.

Paul Gauguin - The Market (1892)

For a while Pablo Picasso was strongly influenced by the sculptural solidity of Greek statues. "The Race" is set in a simple landscape of sky, sea, and ground, within which pink figures as solid as stone move with astonishing abandon, their heads, arms, and legs thrusting outward like the spokes of a wheel rolling across the canvas.

Pablo Picasso - The Race (1923)

In the paintings of his "blue period," he was influenced by El Greco, elongating and patterning the figure in shallow space. Later, inspired partly by African sculpture, he broke up faces and figures into blocklike, cubist shapes.

Pablo Picasso - Women with Pears (1909)

Again, working with flat patterns,he created the delightful "Three Musicians", their dog beneath their chairs with upraised tail, as though beating time to their oboe, guitar, and voice.

Pablo Picasso - Three Musicians (1921)