Cubism

20th Century Painting

Read the following quote from 20th century critic, Guillaume Apollinaire:

“Authentic Cubism is the art of depicting new wholes with formal elements borrowed not from the reality of vision, but from that of conception. This tendency leads to a poetic kind of painting which stands outside the world of observation; for, even in a simple cubism, the geometrical surfaces of an object must be opened out in order to give a complete representation of it… Everyone must agree that a chair, from whichever side it is viewed, never ceased to have four legs, a seat and back, and that if it is robbed of one of these elements, it is robbed of an important part.”

By pulling 3-4 key ideas from this quote, please create your own definition of cubism.

PAUL CÉZANNE, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1902-1904. Oil on canvas, 2'3 1/2" x 2'11 1/4"

cylinders, rectangles, & spheres

Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907Nonwestern, Africa, Koto Reliquary Figure

“I paint forms as I thinkthem, not as I see them.”

Picasso, Mother and Child, 1907

Nonwestern, Africa, Picasso's Grebo Mask

Analytic Cubism:

• subdued hues – monochrome browns• dismissal of pictorial illusionism• using shapes and line (formalism)

• Picasso and Braque

Braque, Houses at L'Estaque,

1908Braque, Fishing Boats, 1909

Braque, The Portuguese,1911

Braque, Violin and Palette, 1909-10

Picasso, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910

Picasso, Ma Jolie, 1911

Braque, Bottle & Fishes, 1910-12

Synthetic Cubism:

• inclusion of collage/ objects• papier colle – stuck paper• “Not only did we try to displace reality;

reality was no longer in the object”

Picasso, Still Life w Chair Caning, 1911-12

PICASSO, GLASS AND

BOTTLE OF SUZE, 1912

SYNTHETIC CUBISM

COLLAGE!!

Constructed paintings and drawings with objects and shapes

Picasso, The Muse, 1935

Picasso, Guernica, 1937