Cubism: Painting Modern Life Dakabin State High School

Pablo Picasso Georges Braque

Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque pioneered Cubism and revolutionised European painting and sculpture.
Cubism

• Pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in 1907 - 1914 and revolutionised European
painting and sculpture.

• Term derived from a reference made to ‘geometric schemas and cubes’ by the critic Louis
Vauxcelles in describing paintings exhibited in Paris by Georges Braque in November 1908.

• Picasso and Braque initiated the movement when they followed the advice of Paul Cézanne,
who in 1904 said artists should treat nature "in terms of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone."

• Picasso and Braque were greatly inspired by:

• African sculpture
• French Expressionist painter Paul Cézanne (1839 - 1906)
• Fauvism (A style of painting that makes use of vivid expressionists and unatural use of colour)

• In Cubism the subject matter is broken up, analyzed and reassembled in an abstracted form
using several angles at once.

• Cubism abandoned single perspective and made use of interlocking planes, geometric shapes
and later collage.

• “I want to draw the mind in a direction it’s not used to and wake it up. I want to help the
viewer discover something he wouldn’t have without me.” - Picasso
 Pablo Picasso George Braque
Ma Jolie Man with a guitar
1911 - 1912 1911 - 1912
Oil on canvas Oil on canvas
Describe what you see in Ma Jolie by Picasso. Discuss which parts of the painting are easy to identify and
which are not. Discuss with a partner the similarities and differences between ‘Ma Jolie’ and ‘Man with a guitar’
Pablo Picasso Georges Braque
Girl with a Mandolin (1910) Woman with Guitar (1913)
Oil on canvas (100.3 x 73.6 cm) Oil and charcoal on canvas
(130 x 73 cm)
Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso
Seated Woman Woman with Pears
Oil on wood (1909)
(1927)
Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso
L'Homme à la guitare (Man with Guitar) The Three Musicians (1921)
(1914) Oil on canvas
 Pablo Picasso. Two Nudes. Paris, late 1906
Oil on canvas, 59 5/8 x 36 5/8" (151.3 x 93 cm).

MoMA Teen Audio

Pablo Picasso
Studio with Plaster Head,
Oil on canvas, 38 5/8 x 51 5/8" (97.9 x 131.1 cm)
1925 MoMA Teen Audio
Extension Activity

Visit MoMA Red Studio: a site for teens. Use the online interactive
activity ‘Remix’ to create a digital collage, be inspired by artists and
experiment with layering and the repetition of images.
URL: http://redstudio.moma.org/interactives/remix
Links

MoMA - http://moma.org/