Cubism

◦ The advent of Cubism marked a period of radical revolution in the arts, with a
rapid spread of artistic innovations and a great diversification of techniques.
◦ Russian, Spanish, and American artists influenced one another, while all felt
the powerful attraction of Paris, the undisputed focus of artistic life.
◦ Cubism can be considered the most influential movement in the history of art
since the Renaissance.
◦ The Cubist artists overturned the rules of perspective that had governed
painting for at least four centuries.
◦ They established new formal and conceptual ways of working, that no artist of
the future would be able to disregard.
◦ The Cubist revolution had already been announced by certain experiments, so
it did not really take audiences by surprise.
◦ In 1911, Michel Puy acknowledged Cubism as the culmination of the task of
simplification undertaken by Cézanne and continued by Matisse and Derain.
André Derain
Bathers
Henri Matisse
A Glimpse of Notre
Dame Late Afternoon
Paul Cézanne
Mont Sainte Victoire
◦ Cézanne’s contribution was fundamental to all avant-garde artistic statements.
 solidification of space;
 treatment of objects as geometrical shapes;
 portraying of near and distant elements at the same time and on the same
plane;
 sacrifice of the richness of colour for the expression of volumes;
 structuring of the picture in accordance with mental and rational schemes.
◦ Pointillism contributed to the adoption of simplified and geometric chromatic
plans for the construction of paintings.
◦ The Fauves (Vlaminck, Derain, and Matisse) promoted knowledge of synthetic
and expressive African sculpture, anticipating the anti-naturalistic and non-
imitative use of colour.
Pablo Picasso
Les Demoiselles
d’Avignon
◦ When “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” by Pablo Picasso was first seen in 1907, it
represented a major break with the canons of traditional portrayal.
◦ No longer governed by the laws of a single, central perspective, artists were
able to depict the subject from various simultaneous viewpoints.
◦ A purely intellectualized vision – a combination of angular solids and
geometric planes – could now be conveyed within a two-dimensional canvas,
thus dismissing spatial illusionism.
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque

◦ The two artists shared the desire for a new language.

◦ They sought a way of expressing a more complete and multi-faceted reality.
◦ They were interested in painting what is known about space and shapes, not
only what is seen.
◦ For the seven years they worked together, their paintings were so similar that it
is sometimes difficult to identify each artist’s work. However, Braque’s works
seem to be more harmonious and to have a rhythmic composition, whereas
Picasso’s are more aggressive, passionate, and dramatic.
Recurrent themes

◦ Angular human figures, treated like wooden sculpture and possessing an

almost sacred solemnity.
◦ Landscapes in which small houses were reduced to geometric cube shapes.
◦ The still-lifes show fragments, silhouettes, and profiles of objects that interlock
tightly as if in a web.
◦ Musical instruments were often represented, mainly because of their formal
values (piano keys relate to spatial rhythm, the shape of the mandolin echoes
the curves of the female body), but also because they tried to achieve a
synthesis of painting and music.
Analytical Cubism

◦ The process of dismantling form was taken to the extreme later on.
◦ Fragmentation and obscurity sometimes led to cryptic and almost
indecipherable works.
◦ Pyramidal structures of geometrical solids tend to dematerialize through the
effect of light shining through them, making them crystalline and forming
schemes that have been mistaken as abstract.
◦ Analysis of form;
◦ Right-angle and straight-line construction;
◦ Simplification of the colour scheme to nearly monochromatic scales (hues of
brown, gray, cream, green or blue).
◦ The primary interest was the structure of form.
◦ The monochromatic colour scheme was suited to the presentation of complex,
multiple views of the object, which was reduced to overlapping and
transparent plans.
◦ Forms are dense and compact at the centre of the painting, growing larger as
they diffuse towards the edge of the canvas.
◦ The Cubists sought to penetrate reality to its very depth, investigating its most
hidden aspects in order to provide as much information about it as possible.
◦ The Cubists wanted to circle around the object and, under the control of the
intellect, to give a concrete representation of several successive aspects of it.
Pablo Picasso
Portrait of Ambroise
Vollard
Le Salon des Indépendants
April 1911
◦ Jean Metzinger
◦ Henri le Fauconnier
◦ Fernand Léger
◦ Robert Delaunay
Jean Metzinger
Jean Metzinger
Henri le
Fauconnier
Henri le
Fauconnier
Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger
◦ Juan Gris associated later on with the group.
◦ In 1911, “Homage to Picasso” acknowledged the painter as the father of a new,
historic artistic era.
◦ The Cubist exhibition in Brussels, organized by Guillaume Apollinaire marked
the close of the movement’s first phase.
Juan Gris
Homage to Picasso