I.

CUBISM

Historical
Cubism describes the revolutionary style of painting that was invented by Pablo Picasso and
Georges Braque in Paris, during the period 1907-12. Their Cubist methods was mainly influenced by the
geometric motifs in the landscape compositions of the Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cezanne. He
radically redefined the nature and scope of fine art painting and, to a lesser extent, sculpture, as previously
practiced, and heralded entirely new ways of representing reality. Over time, the geometric touches grew
so intense that they sometimes overtook the represented forms, creating a more pure level of visual
abstraction. Though the movements most potent era was in the early 20th Century, the ideas and
techniques of Cubism influenced many creative disciplines and continue to inform experimental work. To
this extent, Cubism marks the end of the Renaissance-dominated era, and the beginning of modern art.
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque first met in 1905, but it wasnt until 1907 that Picasso showed
Braque what is considered the first Cubist painting, Les Demoiselles dAvignon. This portrait of five
prostitutes draws heavy influence from African tribal art, which Picasso had recently been exposed to at
the Palais du Trocadro, a Paris ethnographic museum. Breaking nearly every rule of traditional Western
painting, the work was such a huge leap from his previous blue and pink periods, which were far more
representational and emotional. Picasso was hesitant to display the work to the public, and it went unseen
until 1916. Braque, who painted in the Fauvist movement, was both repelled and intrigued by the
painting. Picasso worked with him privately on the implications of the piece, developing together the
Cubist form. Braque is the only artist to ever collaborate with Picasso, and over a period of two years,
they spent every evening together, with neither artist pronouncing a finished work until agreed on by the
other. Braques response to Picassos initial work was his 1908 painting Large Nude, noted for
incorporating the techniques of Paul Czanne as a sobering influence. Thus began the first era of Cubism,
known as Analytical Cubism, which was defined by depictions of a subject from multiple vantage points
at once, creating a fractured, multi-dimensional effect expressed through a limited palette of colors. The
term Cubism was first used by French critic Louis Vauxcelles in 1908 to describe Braques landscape
paintings. Painter Henri Matisse had previously described them to Vauxcelles as looking comprised of
cubes. The term wasnt widely used until the press adopted it to describe the style in 1911. In 1909,
Picasso and Braque redirected their focus from humans to objects to keep Cubism fresh, as with Braques
Violin and Palette.
Cultural
Political
Philosophical
The paintings of Cubism are characterized by geometric, fractured forms, muted, depthless
colors, and unspecified edges. This method produced forms with a reinterpreted a point of view not reliant
on classical theories of perspective, the disappearing horizon, or precise angles of illumination. They
sought to incorporate simultaneous angles of a view on the same canvas, and highlight objects as merely
their geometric constituents. They made free use of the basic Euclidean geometric solids: pyramid, cube,
sphere, cylinder, and cone. The name "cubism" was originally intended as an insult to their "simplistic"
depictions.
Proponents/Leaders/Known
 Personalities

Jean Metzinger

Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (1883 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter,
theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote a theoretical work on Cubism. From
1908 Metzinger experimented with the faceting of form, a style that would soon become known as
Cubism. His early involvement in Cubism saw him both as an influential artist and an important theorist
of the movement. The idea of moving around an object in order to see it from different view-points is
treated, for the first time in Metzinger's Note sur la Peinture, published in 1910.

Tea Time (1911) (Oil on Cardboard - Philadelphia Museum of Art)

When this painting was shown at the 1911 Salon d'Automne, the critic Andre Salmon dubbed it
"The Mona Lisa of Cubism." While Picasso and Braque were dematerializing figures and objects in their
works, Metzinger remained committed to legibility, reconciling modernity with classicism, thus Salmon's
nickname for the work. Despite the realism of the painting, like other Cubists, Metzinger abandons the
single point of view in use since the Renaissance. The female figure and the still life elements are shown
from differing angles as if the artist had physically moved around the subject to capture it from different
points of view at successive moments in time. The teacup is shown in both profile and from above, while
the figure of the centrally positioned woman is shown both straight on and in profile. The painting was
reproduced in Metzinger and Gleizes's book Du Cubisme (1912) and in Apollinaire's The Cubist Painters
(1913). The work became better known at the time than any work by Picasso or Braque who had
removed themselves from the public by not exhibiting at the Salon. For most people in the 1910s,
Cubism was associated with artists like Metzinger, rather than its originators Picasso or Braque.