CUBISM Paris 1907 - 1914

Cubism is a style of painting in which artists try to show all sides of three dimensional objects on a flat canvas. The Cubist artists of the early 20th Century felt it was more honest to depict multiple views of objects than to restrict viewers to a single point of view.

Cubism was an intellectual approach to art rather than a descriptive or emotional one. Cubist artists thought their way through their paintings, trying to show what they knew was there, not what they saw or felt. Pablo Picasso, the founder of this movement said, “We have kept our eyes open to our surroundings, but also our brains.”

Cubism owes a debt to the work of Paul Cezanne, who saw the surfaces of objects as geometric shapes that could be broken up into planes. When Picasso and Georges Braque (another major Cubist painter) met for the first time they spoke of their admiration for the work of Cezanne.

A Cubist painting can confuse the viewer, as objects do not necessarily sit in space the way we expect them to. You can never be sure when one shape is ahead of another, because part of it might seem to be in front and part of it behind surrounding objects.

Cubist painters used drab colours – a significant contrast with the vibrant, saturated palettes of the Impressionists, Fauves, and German Expressionists. The Cubist palette was made up of grays and browns; brighter colours were considered too romantic.

Textured surfaces were an important feature of Cubist painting, especially in the period after 1911, when Picasso and Braque began to collage newspaper clippings, pieces of wallpaper and labels onto their canvases.

Major Cubist Painters: Pablo Picasso (Spanish) 1881 - 1973 Georges Braque (French) 1882 – 1963 Followers: 3. Juan Gris 1887 - 1927 4. Albert Gleize 1881 - 1953

The Cubist movement began in Paris, where Pablo Picasso, a Spaniard, settled in 1901. He lived with a number of other artists in a building known as the Bateau Lavoir, a ramshackle building in the Montmartre district of Paris. There was both rivalry and cameraderie among the artists and their concentration in one location created the conditions for innovative breakthroughs.

In 1905,Picasso completed Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, and showed it to his friend and rival artist Georges Braque.

Avignon is a city in southern France, but the Rue d’Avignon is also the red light district of Barcelona, Spain. The demoiselles, (the girls) pictured here are prostitutes. This is a brothel scene and it originally included a male figure.

These figures are not modelled in any realistic way. Picasso has broken with spatial illusion and allowed the figures to sit on a 2 dimensional plane. Note the repetition of geometric shapes in the composition.

The woman on the far right has a face that resembles an African mask The woman on the far right has a face that resembles an African mask. Although he denied any African influences in his art, Picasso is known to have visited museums where African masks were displayed.

Picasso – Three Musicians

Picasso has abstracted the three figures and their musical instruments, rendering them as pattern and geometric shapes on a flat surface.

Picasso – Woman Here we see more than one view of the woman simultaneously, in both profile and facing views.

Picasso Portrait of Ambroise Vollard This famous portrait depicts Picasso’s dealer, Ambroise Vollard. Vollard took an early interest in the work of the Bateau Lavoir artists.

The Guitar Player A viewer can barely make out the forms of a man and a guitar in this painting. Note the subdued palette and geometric shapes that characterize Cubist art.

Picasso Guitar Player Here is an altogether different guitar player, from Picasso’s blue period, just after he arrived, penniless and friendless, in Paris in 1901. His paintings from this period express his depressed state of mind.

Picasso (Blue Period) The Visit of the two sisters

Picasso Boy with a Pipe As Picasso’s fortunes improved, he moved into his rose period, when his palette warmed up and he turned to happier subjects.

Picasso (Rose Period) Circus Performers

Picasso Family of Saltimbanques

Picasso lived to a great age (91) and his style evolved throughout his life. This painting comes from a period in which he painted gigantesses in a sculptural style (1920 – 1921)

Guernica Guernica is Picasso’s famous anti war picture. It was painted in 1937 to protest the Nazi bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica. At the far right, a woman crashes through the floor of a burning building. In front of her, another woman dashes forward blindly in panic. A horse with a spear in its back screams in terror. A severed head with staring eyes rests on an outstretched arm, its hand reaching for nothing. Another hand tightly clutches a broken sword. A woman holds a dead child and raises her head skyward to scream out her horror at the planes overhead (Mittler. Art in Focus. 541).

Picasso uses bold blacks, whites, and grays instead of color to give the impression of newsprint or newspaper photographs. Adding to the look of newsprint is the stippled effect on the horse. The painting’s powerful images, however, convey the full impact of the event far more effectively than could the words in a newspaper account, or even photographs (Mittler. Art in Focus. 542).

Georges Braque

Georges Braque House at L’Estaque The influence of Cezanne is obvious here.

Georges Braque La Roche

Georges Braque - Le Jour

Georges Braque – Little Violin

Georges Braque The Whole World’s a stage