Cubism was a 20th century art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music and literature. Georges Braque ( May 13, 1882 &ndash August 31, 1963) was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time or at least with the heyday Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973 Georges Braque ( May 13, 1882 &ndash August 31, 1963) was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor Painting (pān'tīng in Art, is the practice of applying Color to a Surface (support base such as e Music is an Art form in which the medium is Sound organized in Time. Literature is the Art of written works Literally translated the word means "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter The first branch of cubism, known as Analytic Cubism, was both radical and influential as a short but highly significant art movement between 1908 and 1911 in France. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. In its second phase, Synthetic Cubism, the movement spread and remained vital until around 1919, when the Surrealist movement gained popularity. Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early-1920s and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members
In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of cubism's distinct characteristics.
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Conception and origins
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the European cultural elite were discovering African, Micronesian and Native American art for the first time. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973 Micronesia, from the Greek mikros (μικρός (meaning small) and nesos (νῆσος (meaning island) is a Subregion For indigenous peoples in the United States other than Hawaii and Alaska see also Native Americans in the United States. Artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso were intrigued and inspired by the stark power and simplicity of styles of those foreign cultures. Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903 was a leading Post-Impressionist painter. Henri Matisse (31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954 was a French Artist, known for his use of Colour and his fluid brilliant and original draughtsmanship Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973 Around 1904, Picasso met Matisse through Gertrude Stein, at a time when both artists had recently acquired an interest in African art and African tribal masks. Gertrude Stein ( February 3, 1874 &ndash July 27, 1946) was an American Writer who spent most of her life in France African art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth There are an enormous variety of Masks used in Africa. In West Africa, masks are used in masquerades that form part of religious ceremonies enacted to contact with They became friendly rivals and competed with each other throughout their careers, perhaps leading to Picasso entering a new period in his work by 1907, marked by the influence of Greek, Iberian and African art. African art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth Picasso's paintings of 1907 have been characterized as Protocubism, as notably seen in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the antecedent of Cubism. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon ( The Young Ladies of Avignon) is a large Oil painting by Pablo Picasso that depicts five Prostitutes
Some believe that the roots of cubism are to be found in the two distinct tendencies of Paul Cézanne's later work: firstly to break the painted surface into small multifaceted areas of paint, thereby emphasizing the plural viewpoint given by binocular vision, and secondly his interest in the simplification of natural forms into cylinders, spheres, and cones. Binocular vision is vision in which both Eyes are used together
However, the cubists explored this concept further than Cézanne; they represented all the surfaces of depicted objects in a single picture plane, as if the objects had had all their faces visible at the same time. This new kind of depiction revolutionized the way in which objects could be visualized in painting and art.
The invention of Cubism was a joint effort between Picasso and Braque, then residents of Montmartre, Paris. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973 Georges Braque ( May 13, 1882 &ndash August 31, 1963) was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor Montmartre is a hill (the butte Montmartre) which is 130 metres high giving its name to the surrounding district in the north of Paris in the 18th Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city These artists were the movement's main innovators. A later active participant was the Spaniard Juan Gris. José Victoriano González-Pérez ( March 23, 1887 – May 11, 1927) better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish After meeting in 1907 Braque and Picasso in particular began working on the development of Cubism. Picasso was initially the force and influence that persuaded Braque by 1908 to move away from Fauvism. Les Fauves ( French for The Wild Beasts) were a short-lived and loose grouping of early The two artists began working closely together in late 1908 - early 1909 until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All The movement spread quickly throughout Paris and Europe.
French art critic Louis Vauxcelles first used the term "cubism", or "bizarre cubiques", in 1908 after seeing a picture by Braque. Louis Vauxcelles (1870-1943 was an influential French art critic He described it as 'full of little cubes', after which the term quickly gained wide use although the two creators did not initially adopt it. Art historian Ernst Gombrich described cubism as "the most radical attempt to stamp out ambiguity and to enforce one reading of the picture - that of a man-made construction, a coloured canvas. Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, OM, CBE ( 30 March 1909 &ndash 3 November 2001) was an Austrian-born Art historian "[1]
Cubism was taken up by many artists in Montparnasse and promoted by art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, becoming popular so quickly that by 1911 critics were referring to a "cubist school" of artists. José Victoriano González-Pérez ( March 23, 1887 – May 11, 1927) better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish Montparnasse is an area of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred on the intersection of the Boulevard du Montparnasse Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler ( June 25, 1884 - January 11, 1979) born in Germany, was an art historian an art collector and one of the However, many of the artists who thought of themselves as cubists went in directions quite different from Braque and Picasso. The Puteaux Group was a significant offshoot of the Cubist movement; it included Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, his brothers Raymond Duchamp-Villon, and Jacques Villon, and Fernand Léger, and Francis Picabia. The Section d'Or ("Golden Section" in French) also known as Groupe de Puteaux or Puteaux Group and based in the Paris suburb of Puteaux Guillaume Apollinaire (in French ɡijom apɔliˈnɛʁ ( August 26, 1880 &ndash November 9, 1918) was a French Poet Robert Delaunay ( April 12 1885 — October 25 1941) was a French artist who used orphism, similar to abstraction Marcel Duchamp (maʀsɛl dyˈʃɑ̃ (28 July 1887 &ndash 2 October 1968 was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist Raymond Duchamp-Villon ( November 5, 1876 - October 9, 1918) was a French sculptor Jacques Villon ( July 31, 1875 - June 9, 1963) was a French Cubist painter and printmaker Joseph Fernand Henri Léger ( February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and Francis-Marie Martinez Picabia ( January 22, 1879 - November 30, 1953) was a well-known painter and poet born of a French mother and Other important artists associated with cubism include: Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Marie Laurencin, Diego Rivera, Marie Vorobieff, Louis Marcoussis, Jeanne Rij-Rousseau, Roger de La Fresnaye, Henri Le Fauconnier, František Kupka, Amédée Ozenfant, Patrick Henry Bruce among others. Albert Gleizes ( December 8, 1881 - June 23, 1953) was a French painter Jean Metzinger ( June 24, 1883 – November 3, 1956) was a French painter. Marie Laurencin ( October 31, 1883 – June 8, 1956) was a French painter and printmaker Diego Rivera (December 8 1886 &ndash November 24 1957 was born Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez Marie Vorobieff -Stebelska (1892 in Cheboksary, Russia - 4 May 1984 in London, Great Britain) – the nickname Marevna reputedly having Louis Marcoussis, formerly Ludwik Kazimierz Wladyslaw Markus or Ludwig Casimir Ladislas Markus, (born 1878 or 1883 Warsaw - died October 22 1941 Cusset was a painter Jeanne Rij-Rousseau ( June 10, 1870 – October 22, 1956) was a French Cubist painter and an art theoretician Roger de La Fresnaye ( 11 July, 1885 - 27 November, 1925) was a French Cubist painter. František Kupka ( September 23, 1871 - June 24, 1957) was a Czech painter and Graphic artist. Amédée Ozenfant ( 15 April, 1886 &ndash 4 May, 1966) was a French Cubist painter. Patrick Henry Bruce ( March 25, 1881 – November 12, 1936) was an American cubist painter Section d'Or is another name for a related group of many of the same artists associated with cubism and orphism. The Section d'Or ("Golden Section" in French) also known as Groupe de Puteaux or Puteaux Group and based in the Paris suburb of Puteaux
In 1913 the United States was exposed to cubism and modern European art when Jacques Villon exhibited seven important and large drypoints at the famous Armory Show in New York City. Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of US National Guard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the International Exhibition The City of New York Braque and Picasso themselves went through several distinct phases before 1920, and some of these works had been seen in New York prior to the Armory Show, at Alfred Stieglitz's "291" gallery. Alfred Stieglitz (January 1 1864 &ndash July 13 1946 was an American photographer who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making Photography an acceptable Czech artists who realized the epochal significance of cubism of Picasso and Braque attempted to extract its components for their own work in all branches of artistic creativity - especially painting and architecture. Czechs (Češi ˈt͡ʃɛʃɪ archaic Čechové) are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic Painting (pān'tīng in Art, is the practice of applying Color to a Surface (support base such as e The term architecture (from Greek αρχιτεκτονικήarchitektoniki) can be used to mean a process a profession or documentation This developed into Czech Cubism which was an avant-garde art movement of Czech proponents of cubism active mostly in Prague from 1910 to 1914. Czech Cubism was Avant-garde art movement of Czech proponents of the Cubism active mostly in Prague from 1910 to 1914 Avant-garde (avɑ̃gaʁd in French) means "advance guard" or "vanguard Prague (ˈprɑːg Praha (ˈpraɦa see also other names) is the Capital and Largest city of the Czech Republic.
Analytic Cubism
Analytic Cubism is one of the two major branches of the artistic movement of Cubism and was developed between 1908 and 1912. In contrast to Synthetic cubism, Analytic cubists "analyzed" natural forms and reduced the forms into basic geometric parts on the two-dimensional picture plane. Colour was almost non-existent except for the use of a monochromatic scheme that often included grey, blue and ochre. Instead of an emphasis on colour, Analytic cubists focused on forms like the cylinder, sphere and the cone to represent the natural world. A cylinder is one of the most basic curvilinear geometric shapes the Surface formed by the points at a fixed distance from a given Straight line, the axis "Globose" redirects here See also Globose nucleus. A sphere (from Greek σφαίρα - sphaira, "globe A cone is a three-dimensional Geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat round base to a point called the apex or vertex During this movement, the works produced by Picasso and Braque shared stylistic similarities. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973 Georges Braque ( May 13, 1882 &ndash August 31, 1963) was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor
Both painters Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque moved toward abstraction, leaving only enough signs of the real world to supply a tension between the reality outside the painting and the complicated meditations on visual language within the frame, exemplified through their paintings Ma Jolie (1911), by Picasso and The Portuguese (1911), by Braque.
In Paris in 1907 there was a major museum retrospective exhibition of the work of Paul Cezanne shortly after his death. The exhibition was enormously influential in establishing Cezanne as an important painter whose ideas were particularly resonant especially to young artists in Paris. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Both Picasso and Braque found the inspiration for Cubism from Paul Cezanne, who said to observe and learn to see and treat nature as if it were composed of basic shapes like cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones. Picasso was the main analytic cubist, but Braque was also prominent, having abandoned Fauvism to work with Picasso in developing the Cubist lexicon. Les Fauves ( French for The Wild Beasts) were a short-lived and loose grouping of early
Synthetic Cubism
Synthetic Cubism was the second main branch of Cubism developed by Picasso, Braque, Juan Gris and others between 1912 and 1919. José Victoriano González-Pérez ( March 23, 1887 – May 11, 1927) better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973 Georges Braque ( May 13, 1882 &ndash August 31, 1963) was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor José Victoriano González-Pérez ( March 23, 1887 – May 11, 1927) better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish It was seen as the first time that collage had been made as a fine art work. A collage (From the coller to glue is a work of formal art primarily in the Visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms thus creating a new whole
The first work of this new style was Pablo Picasso's Still Life with Chair-caning (1911–1912), which includes oil cloth pasted on the canvas. At the upper left are the letters "JOU", which appear in many cubist paintings and may refer to a newspaper titled "Le Journal". Newspaper clippings were a common inclusion in this style of cubism, whereby physical pieces of newspaper, sheet music, or the like were included in the collages. JOU may also at the same time be a pun on the French words jeu (game) or jouer (to play). Picasso and Braque had a constant friendly competition with each other and including the letters in their works may have been an extension of their game.
Whereas analytic cubism was an analysis of the subjects (pulling them apart into planes), synthetic cubism is more of a pushing of several objects together. Picasso, through this movement, was the first to use text in his artwork (to flatten the space), and the use of mixed media—using more than one type of medium in the same piece. Opposed to analytic cubism, synthetic cubism has fewer planar shifts (or schematism), and less shading, creating flatter space.
Another technique used was called papier collé, or stuck paper, which Braque used in his collage Fruit Dish and Glass (1913). Papier collé (French pasted paper) is a painting technique and type of Collage.
Cubism and its ideologies
Paris before World War I was a ferment of politics. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All New anarcho-syndicalist trade unions and women's rights movements were especially new and vigorous. Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of Anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. There were strong movements around patriotic nationalism. Cubism was a particularly varied art movement in its political affiliations, with some sections being broadly anarchist or leftist, while others were strongly aligned with nationalist sentiment.
Cubism in other fields
The written works of Gertrude Stein employ repetition and repetitive phrases as building blocks in both passages and whole chapters. Prague (ˈprɑːg Praha (ˈpraɦa see also other names) is the Capital and Largest city of the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic ( ˈt͡ʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka short form in Česko ˈt͡ʃɛskɔ also called Czechia, Gertrude Stein ( February 3, 1874 &ndash July 27, 1946) was an American Writer who spent most of her life in France Most of Stein's important works utilize this technique, including the novel The Makings of Americans (1906–08) Not only were they the first important patrons of Cubism, Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo were also important influences on Cubism as well. Leo Stein (born 1872 in Allegheny Pennsylvania; died July 29, 1947, in Florence Italy) was an American art collector and critic Picasso in turn was an important influence on Stein's writing. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973 Gertrude Stein ( February 3, 1874 &ndash July 27, 1946) was an American Writer who spent most of her life in France
The poets generally associated with Cubism are Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, André Salmon and Pierre Reverdy. Guillaume Apollinaire (in French ɡijom apɔliˈnɛʁ ( August 26, 1880 &ndash November 9, 1918) was a French Poet Frédéric Louis Sauser ( September 1, 1887 &ndash January 21, 1961) better known as Blaise Cendrars, was a Swiss novelist and poet Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (5 July 1889 &ndash 11 October 1963 was a French Poet, Novelist, Dramatist, Designer, Boxing Max Jacob ( July 12, 1876 &ndash March 5, 1944) was a French Poet, painter, Writer, and critic André Salmon ( October 4, 1881, Paris - March 12 1969, Sanary-sur-Mer in Provence) was a French poet art critic and writer Pierre Reverdy ( 13 September 1889 - 17 June 1960) was a French poet associated with Surrealism and Cubism. As American poet Kenneth Rexroth explains, Cubism in poetry "is the conscious, deliberate dissociation and recombination of elements into a new artistic entity made self-sufficient by its rigorous architecture. Kenneth Rexroth ( December 22[[ 905]] &ndash June 6[[ 982]] was an American Poet, Translator and critical Essayist He was among the This is quite different from the free association of the Surrealists and the combination of unconscious utterance and political nihilism of Dada. "[2] Nonetheless, the Cubist poets' influence on both Cubism and the later movements of Dada and Surrealism was profound; Louis Aragon, founding member of Surrealism, said that for Breton, Soupault, Éluard and himself, Reverdy was "our immediate elder, the exemplary poet. For other meanings see Dada (disambiguation DaDa is a Concept album by Alice Cooper, released Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early-1920s and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members Louis Aragon lwi aʁaˈgɔ̃ in French ( October 3, 1897 &ndash December 24, 1982) French Poet and Novelist "[3] Though not as well remembered as the Cubist painters, these poets continue to influence and inspire; American poets John Ashbery and Ron Padgett have recently produced new translations of Reverdy's work. John Ashbery (born July 28, 1927) is Ron Padgett (born June 17, 1942) is an American Poet, Essayist fiction writer and Translator, and a member of the Pierre Reverdy ( 13 September 1889 - 17 June 1960) was a French poet associated with Surrealism and Cubism.
Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" is also said to demonstrate how cubism's multiple perspectives can be translated into poetry. The House of the Black Madonna is a Cubist building in the " Old Town " area of Prague, Czech republic. Wallace Stevens ( October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was a major American Modernist Poet. [4]
The composer Edgard Varèse was heavily influenced by Cubist writing and art. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse
Cubism today
Far from being an art movement confined to the annals of art history, Cubism and its legacy continue to inform the work of many contemporary artists. Not only is cubist imagery regularly used commercially but significant numbers of contemporary artists continue to draw upon it both stylistically and perhaps more importantly, theoretically. The latter contains the clue as to the reason for cubism's enduring fascination for artists. As an essentially representational school of painting, having to come to grips with the rising importance of photography as an increasingly viable method of image making, cubism attempts to take representational imagery beyond the mechanically photographic and to move beyond the bounds of traditional single point perspective perceived, as though, by a totally immobile viewer. The questions and theories which arose during the initial appearance of cubism in the early 20th century are, for many representational artists, as current today as when first proposed.
References
- ^ Ernst Gombrich (1960) Art and Illusion, as quoted in Marshall McLuhan (1964) Understanding Media, p. Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, OM, CBE ( 30 March 1909 &ndash 3 November 2001) was an Austrian-born Art historian 12 [1]
- ^ The Cubist Poetry of Pierre Reverdy (Rexroth)
- ^ Bloodaxe Books: Title Page > Pierre Reverdy: Selected Poems
- ^ Illinois Wesleyan University - The American Poetry Web
Further reading
- John Cauman (2001). Inheriting Cubism: The Impact of Cubism on American Art, 1909-1936. New York: Hollis Taggart Galleries. ISBN 0-9705723-4-4.
See also
External links
- On-Line Picasso Project
- The Cubist Rupture Artistic comments in MundoArta
- Video decoding a Picasso Cubist still-life
- ibiblio (internet library) Cubism
- The Czech Cubism Foundation (English)
- Cubism, The Big Picture
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