Pablo
Picasso (1881-1973)
Factory,
Horta de Ebbo (oil on canvas, 1909)
Philadelphia
Museum of Art
Cubism
- a new way of seeing.
Cubism
was a truly revolutionary style of modern art that evolved
at the beginning of the 20th century in response to a
world that was changing with unprecedented speed. Cubism
was an attempt by artists to revitalise the tired traditions
of Western art which they believed had run their course.
They challenged conventional forms of representation,
such as perspective, which had been the rule since the
Renaissance. Their aim was to develop a new way of seeing
which reflected the modern age.
In
the four decades from 1870-1910, western society witnessed
more technological progress than in the previous four
centuries. During this period inventions such as photography,
cinematography, sound recording, the telephone, the motor
car and the airplane heralded the dawn of a new age. The
problem for artists at this time was how to reflect the
modernity of the era using the tired and trusted traditions
that had served art for the last four centuries. Photography
had begun to replace painting as the tool for documenting
the age and for artists to sit illustrating cars, planes
and images of the new technologies was not exactly rising
to the challenge. Artists needed a more radical approach
- a 'new way of seeing' that expanded the possibilities
of art in the same way that technology was extending the
boundaries of communication and travel.
This
new way of seeing was called 'Cubism'. The idea was developed
around 1907 in Paris by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.
Their starting point for this new style was a common interest
in the later paintings of Paul Cézanne.
The
Influence of Cézanne
Paul
Cézanne (1839-1906)
Bibemus
Quarry (oil on canvas, 1895)
Museum
Folkwang
Cézanne
was not primarily interested in creating an illusion of
depth in his painting and he abandoned the tradition of
perspective
drawing. Perspective, which had been used since the
Early Renaissance, was a geometric formula that solved
the problem of how to draw three-dimensional objects on
a two dimensional surface. Cézanne felt that the
illusionism of perspective denied the fact that a painting
is a flat two-dimensional object. He liked to flatten
the space in his paintings to place more emphasis on their
surface - to stress the difference between a painting
and reality. He saw painting in more abstract terms as
the construction and arrangement of colour on a two-dimensional
surface. It was this abstract approach that appealed to
the Cubists and they took it to an extreme.
The
Cubist Vision
Juan
Gris (1887-1927)
Violin and Glass (oil on canvas, 1915)
Fogg
Art Museum, Harvard University
The
limitations of perspective were also seen as an obstacle
to progress by the Cubists. The fact that a picture drawn
in perspective could only work from one viewpoint restricted
their options. As the image was drawn from a fixed position,
the result was frozen, like a snapshot - but the Cubists
wanted to make pictures that reached beyond the rigid
geometry of perspective. They wanted to introduce the
idea of 'relativity' - how the artist perceived and selected
elements from the subject, fusing both their observations
and memories into the one concentrated image. To do this
the Cubists examined the way that we see.
When you look at an object your eye scans it, stopping
to register on a certain detail before moving on to the
next point of interest and so on. You can also change
your viewpoint in relation to the object allowing you
to look at it from above, below or from the side. Therefore,
the Cubists proposed that your sight of an object is the
sum of many different views and your memory of an object
is not constructed from one angle, as in perspective,
but from many angles selected by your sight and movement.
Cubist painting, paradoxically abstract in form, was an
attempt at a more realistic way of seeing.
A
typical Cubist painting depicts real people, places or
objects, but not from a fixed viewpoint. Instead it will
show you many parts of the subject at one time, viewed
from different angles, and reconstructed into a composition
of planes, forms and colours. The whole idea of space
is reconfigured: the front, back and sides of the subject
become interchangeable elements in the design of the work.
Pablo
Picasso and Georges Braque conceived and developed Cubism,
the first abstract art form, but other artists also adopted
the style. The Spanish artist Juan
Gris was the best of these and he refined the Cubist
vocabulary into his own instantly recognisable visual
language.
The
Influence of African Art
Pablo
Picasso (1881-1973)
Head
of a Woman, (oil on canvas, 1907)
Dan Mask
www.zyama.com
The
Cubists believed that the traditions of Western art had
become exhausted and another remedy they applied to revitalize
their work was to draw on the expressive energy of art
from other cultures, especially African art. However,
they were not interested in the true religious or social
symbolism of these cultural objects, but valued them superficially
for their expressive style. They viewed them as subversive
elements that could be used to attack and subsequently
refresh the tired tradition of Western art. This inspiration
to cross-reference art from different cultures probably
came from Paul Gauguin, the French post-impressionist
artist, whose paintings and prints were influenced by
the native culture of Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands
where he spent his final years.
Analytical
Cubism
Georges
Braque (1881-1973)
Violin and Jug (oil on canvas, 1910)
Kunstmuseum,
Basel
Cubism
had two distinct phases. The early phase which lasted
until about 1912 was called Analytical Cubism. Here the
artist analysed the subject from many different viewpoints
and reconstructed it within a geometric framework, the
overall effect of which was to create an image that evoked
a sense of the subject. These fragmented images were unified
by the use of a subdued and limited palette of colours.
Pablo
Picasso (1881-1973)
Still
Life with Chair Caning
(oil on canvas, 1912)
Musée
Picasso, Paris
Around
1912, the styles of Picasso and Braque were becoming predictable.
Their images had grown so similar that their paintings
of this period are often difficult to tell apart. Their
work was increasingly abstract and less recognisable as
the subject of their titles. Cubism was running out of
creative steam. In an attempt to revitalise the style
and pull it back from total abstraction, Picasso began
to glue printed images from the 'real world' onto the
surface of his still lifes. His painting 'Still Life with
Chair Caning', was the first example of this 'collage'
technique and it opened the door for himself and other
artists to the second phase of the Cubist style: Synthetic
Cubism.
Synthetic
Cubism
Pablo
Picasso (1881-1973)
Still
Life with Mandolin and Guitar 1924 (oil on canvas, 1915)
Guggenheim
Museum, New York
Influenced
by the introduction of bold and simple collage shapes,
Synthetic Cubism moved away from the unified monochrome
surfaces of Analytic Cubism to a more direct, colourful
and decorative style. Although synthetic cubist images
appear more abstract in their use of simplified forms,
the other elements of their composition are applied quite
traditionally. Interchanging lines, colours, patterns
and textures, that switch from geometric to freehand,
dark to light, positive to negative and plain to patterned,
advance and recede in rhythms across the picture plain.
Beyond
Cubism
Cubism
was born in France but emigrated across Europe and integrated
with the artistic consciousness of several countries.
It emerged as Futurism in Italy, Vorticism in England,
Suprematism and Constructivism in Russia, and Expressionism
in Germany. It also influenced several of the major design
and architectural styles of the 20th century and prevails
to this day as mode of expression in the language of art.
Cubism Facts
