Cubism
Shifting our perspective on how we view the world
One of the most famous art styles of all time, Cubism is probably the most radical and influential of all movements in this book. It was developed in Paris by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque from 1907-1914. They were hugely influenced by the latter works of Paul Cézanne, as well as Primitivism and African and Asian art.
In 1907 Braque saw Picasso’s breakthrough cubist painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and was transfixed. The two artists became inseparable, painting together almost every day. They abandoned classical one-point perspective and began to portray their subjects from multiple viewpoints. All semblance of realism went out the window, with their work emphasising flat, two-dimensional picture planes, often reducing their compositions to a series of abstract, geometric shapes.
It cannot be overstated how radical this departure of perspective was. Ever since the Renaissance, western artists had been trying to create the illusion of depth on a flat two-dimensional canvas through tone, colour and linear perspective. Cubism blew this up, portraying their subjects in a series of overlapping geometric shapes that actually emphasised the canvas’s two-dimensionality. They believed this new representation actually gave a more accurate understanding of how we really see the world.
The bemused Louis Vauxcelles, the very same art critic who labelled Matisse a wild beast, described an early Braque painting in 1908 as ‘bizarreries cubiques’ (cubist oddities). Once again inadvertently naming an art movement.
The early phase of Cubism from 1907-1912 is known as Analytical Cubism. It is typical to see limited, muted colour palettes of greys and browns during this time. More and more artists began to paint in a Cubist style as a second phase known as Synthetic Cubism emerged during 1912-1914. Here they broadened their colour palette, and also experimented with new techniques such as collage, often incorporating newsprint into their works. Collage would become very influential on other contemporary movements such as Dada and Constructivism.
In 1912 the Cubist manifesto Du Cubisme was published by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger. Here they laid out the principles and ideas that characterised Cubist art, in particular the penchant to paint a subject from multiple vantage points.
Cubism continued to be an important and widely practised style for many years, with other artists such as Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp and Robert Delaunay contributing to the movement. It was one of the most important art styles of the 20th century, and was hugely influential on other contemporary movements such as Dada, Futurism and Vorticism, as well as many other abstract art styles. Its influence can be seen in literature, fashion, modernist architects like Le Corbusier, and even the music of Igor Stravinsky.