This is a very large picture - which, in Picasso's case, means that it is almost certainly announces a change of direction. The style and subject matter provide ample confirmation. After years of classical restraint, it is as if Picasso can stand no more and has allowed his suppressed rage and anguish to erupt on to the canvas. Like The Lovers, Three Dancers is theatrical; but now the bodies are violently distorted (an emotional distortion, quite different from the 'analytical' distortions of Picasso's Cubist works) and the harsh colours and angularities suggest that some grotesque ritual is being enacted. The central dancer, it has been said, looks like a crucified figure.
There were certainly personal factors behind this change of style (bitter conflicts had developed between Picasso and Olga). The violence and expressive distortions - especially of the female figure - continued into the late 1920s, leading many critics to interpret this as a period of misogyny.
