Perspective distortion, abstraction of the subject through extreme cropping, a surrealistic staging, and a sooty printing aesthetic: those are the key elements in the work of Bill Brandt. These two photographs show how he played with the motif of the nude. Because he photographed the limbs from close range it is not always immediately clear what we are looking at.
![The Barbaric Dance (Before Salomé and Hérod) [La danse barbare (devant Salomé et Hérode)], Pablo Picasso, 1905, published 1913](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/50a2abdc-52b3-49f7-af3f-2ef384c8f1d0/full/!2400,2400/0/default.jpg)