1. The Origins of Cubism
Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907

2. Picasso, Landscape with a Factory at Horta de Ebro, 1908
An Early Form of Cubism
Picasso, Landscape with a
Factory at Horta de Ebro, 1908
Georges Braque

3. Cézanne, c. 1900
Picasso, 1908
Another example of the relationship
between Picasso and Cézanne

4. Picasso, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910

5. Cézanne, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1899
Picasso, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910

6. “Analytic” Cubism (or “High” Cubism)
This type of Cubism is usually called Analytic Cubism because it sort of fits the definition of “analysis” as the breaking up of something complex into its various simpler elements; and also in order to differentiate it from a later form of Cubism called Synthetic Cubism, which supposedly follows the opposite process.
However, we will not concern ourselves with these terms in this class.
Picasso, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910

7. Picasso, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910
Voids seal over, becoming solid, while solids flatten out and fragment
This type of Cubism is characterized by its overlapping, intersecting, interpenetrating planes and by the integration of the forms with the space around them
Picasso, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910

8. Matisse, Nolde, 1909
Picasso, 1910
Cubism compared with Fauvism
and German Expressionism

9. • Abstract art: Art that doesn’t represent anything
from the visible world
• Non-Objective: Synonym for abstract; art containing
no recognizable “objects”
• Mysticism: A theory or doctrine according to which
knowledge of God, of spiritual truth, of ultimate reality
cannot be attained through reason, rational intelligence,
or sense perception, but only through subjective
experience, meditation, inner vision, etc.

10. Vasily Kandinsky (Russian, active in Germany), Landscape with a Church, 1905

11. Post-Impressionist roots of early Kandinsky
Kandinsky, Landscape with a Church, 1905
Post-Impressionist roots of
early Kandinsky
Van Gogh, Wheat Field and Cypress Trees, 1889

12. Landscape with a Church, 1905

13. Kandinsky’s conversion to pure abstract art
Living in Munich in 1910, Kandinsky wrote about the following experience:
“I was once enchanted by an unexpected view in my studio. It was the hour of approaching dusk. I came home with my paint box after making a study, still dreaming and wrapped up in the work I had completed, when suddenly I saw an indescribably beautiful picture drenched with an inner glow. At first I hesitated, then I rushed toward this mysterious picture, of which I saw nothing but forms and colors, and whose content was incomprehensible. Immediately I found the key to the puzzle: it was a picture I had painted, leaning against the wall, standing on its side.
“The next day I attempted to get the same effect by daylight. I was only half-successful: even on its side I always recognized the objects, and the fine finish of dusk was missing. Now I knew for certain that the object harmed my paintings.”

14. Kandinsky, Painting with a Black Arch, 1912
Note: painted as a member of Der Blaue Reiter (“The Blue Rider”),
an offshoot of German Expressionism. Formed in Munich in 1911,
the group broke up with the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

15. Painting with a Black Arch, 1912
Sketch I for Composition VII, 1913

16. Sketch I for Composition VII
Note: significance of “synesthesia”—a condition where the
stimulus of one sense (say, color, which stimulates sight)
can result in an experience of another sense (say, hearing).

17. Piet Mondrian (Dutch), Red Tree, 1908

18. Post-Impressionist roots of early Mondrian
Mondrian, Red Tree, 1908
Van Gogh, Mulberry Tree, 1889
Post-Impressionist roots of early Mondrian

19. Red Tree, 1908
Tree, 1911

20. The influence of Cubism on Mondrian
Picasso, Portrait of
Ambroise Vollard, 1910
The influence of Cubism
on Mondrian
Mondrian,
Tree, 1911

21. Kandinsky, 1912
Mondrian,
1911

22. Tree, 1911
Composition,

23. Composition with Great
Blue Plane, 1921
Composition,

24. Composition with Great Composition with Red, Blue,
Blue Plane, and Yellow, 1930
Note: painted as a member of De Stijl (“The Style”)—a Dutch art group with highly idealistic goals that took its name from a magazine of the same title founded in 1917.

25. Kandinsky
Mondrian