History of painting world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive, landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism. Henri Matisse's second version of "The Dance" signifies a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting. It reflects Matisse's incipient fascination with primitive art: the intense warm colors against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and hedonism. Pablo Picasso made his first cubist paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids: cube, sphere and cone. With the painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 1907,
Guernica (Picasso) of preliminary studies, the so-called primary project, that show an atelier installation incorporating the central triangular shape which reappears in the final version of "Guernica", Becht-Jördens and Wehmeier interpret the painting as a self-referential composition in the tradition of atelier paintings such as "Las Meninas" by Diego Velázquez. In his "chef d'oeuvre", Picasso seems to be trying to define his role and his power as an artist in the face of political power and violence. But far from being a mere political painting, "Guernica" should be seen as Picasso's comment on what art can actually contribute towards the self-assertion that