Cubism

“Shattered Drawing”

Project

Cubism- 1907 •A modern art movement in which forms are abstracted

•Cubism is a backlash to the impressionist period in which there is more of an emphasis of light and color.

•Converting the represented forms into the essential geometric shapes: the cube, the sphere, the cylinder, and the cone.

•An object, seen from various points of view, could be reconstructed using particular separate "views" which overlapped and intersected.

•Since color supposedly interfered in purely intellectual perception of the form, the Cubist palette was restricted to a narrow, almost monochromatic scale, dominated by grays and browns.

•Introduction to Cubism:Cubism (a name suggested by Henri Matisse in 1909) is a non-objective approach to painting developed originally in France by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque around 1906. The early, "pre-Cubist" period (to 1906) is characterized by emphasizing the process of construction, of creating a pictorial rhythm, and converting the represented forms into the essential geometric shapes: the cube, the sphere, the cylinder, and the cone. Between 1909 and 1911, the analysis of human forms and still lifes (hence the name -- Analytical Cubism) led to the creation of a new stylistic system which allowed the artists to transpose the three-dimensional subjects into the flat images on the surface of the canvas. An object, seen from various points of view, could be reconstructed using particular separate "views" which overlapped and intersected. The result of such a reconstruction was a summation of separate temporal moments on the canvas. Picasso called this reorganized form the "sum of destructions," that is, the sum of thefragmentations. Since color supposedly interfered in purely intellectual perception of the form, the Cubist palette was restricted to a narrow, almost monochromatic scale, dominated by grays and browns.This description is from: © Alexander Boguslawski 1998-2000http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/cubism.html

Cubism is a more modern art movement in which forms are abstracted by using an analytical approach to the object and painting the basic geometric solid of the subject.  Cubism is a backlash to the impressionist period in which there is more of an emphasis of light and color.  Cubism itself follows Paul Cezanne statement that "Everything in nature takes its form from the sphere, the cone, and the cylinder." in which these 3 shapes are used to depict the object of the painting.  Another way that the cubist expressed their painting was by showing different views of an object put together in a way that you can not actually see in real life.  The Cubism period stated in Paris in 1908, reached its peak in 1914, and continued into the 20's.  The leaders in the cubist era were  Pablo Picasso  and  Georges Braque .

Pablo Picasso Georges Braque

Cubism- 1907 Leaders:

Albert Gleizes (French, 1881-1953), Portrait of Jacques Navral, 1911, oil on canvas

Pablo Picasso, Seated Nude, 1909-10, oil on canvas

Pablo Picasso, Bowl of Fruit, Violin and Bottle, 1914, oil on canvas

Pablo Picasso, Studio of the Milliner, 1926, oil on canvas

Portrait of Picasso by Juan Gris, 1912

 

                                                                   

                                                            Carafe, Jug, and Fruit Bowl, summer 1909, Pablo PicassoViolin and Palette, autumn 1909, Georges BraqueCubism is an art style spearheaded simultaneously by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. When they compared paintings in 1908, they realised that they had developed a new art style that was later dubbed by Guillaume Apollinaire to be ’cubism’. The two paintings above show how close the artwork of the two had become even though there was no intentional attempt to collaborate. Cubism broke from centuries of tradition by rejecting the idea that art should depict a single viewpoint. Instead they used an analytical system in which three-dimensional subjects were fragmented and redefined from several different points of view simultaneously. The hallmarks of cubism are the ’breaking down’ of form and space into geometrical shapes.In contrast to traditional painting styles where the perspective of a subject is fixed in one time and space, cubist work can portray the subject from multiple perspectives and multiple lapses of time.Cubism is sometimes regarded as having two phases - the Analytic phase (1907-12), and the Synthetic phase (1913 through the 1920s). The initial phase attempted to show objects as the mind, not the eye, perceives them. The Synthetic phase featured works that were composed of fewer and simpler forms, in brighter colours. Other major exponents of Cubism included Robert Delaunay, Francis Picabia, Jean Metzinger, Marcel Duchamp and Fernand Leger, Piet Mondrian and Sir Jacob Epstein.

 

Nude Descending a Staircase

Marcel Duchamp

1912

Duct at L'Estaque, Georges Braque, 1908

Jessica M.

Kara H.

Renee R.

Jess G.

Christine L.