CUBISM
HOW DOES THE ART OF CUBISM REFLECT THE SOCIETY AND OUTLOOK OF THE ARTISTS OF THE TIME AROUND 1907?
INFLUENCE OF SOCIETY ON ARTISTS
• There was a push towards being modern.
A time of great change as people
embraced new inventions and people’s
lifestyles were changing. e.g., transport,
electricity, communications, factories,
people moving away from farms to the
cities (industrialisation).
• Invention of photography took over from
the needs of traditional art forms to
reproduce realistic scenes.
INFLUENCE OF SOCIETY ON ARTISTS
•New philosophies and rise of psychology. Artists could now interpret the world communicating their emotions, thoughts and philosophies.
• Artists no longer wanted to depict a single traditional view in their art but wanted to interpret their world showing movement, time and multiple views as if you were moving through space, thoughts and opinions, a more expressive response to the subject.
WHAT DID THE ARTISTS DO IN THEIR PAINTINGS TO REFLECT
THESE IDEAS?• These works stressed the use of multiple perspective (view points) and complex planes (flattened surfaces) for expressive effect.
• The artists tried to incorporate a sense of time through multiple perspectives, giving symbolic expression to the notion of ‘duration’.
WHAT DID THE ARTISTS DO IN THEIR PAINTINGS TO REFLECT
THESE IDEAS?
The artists create space and effects of multiple viewpoints to convey a physical and psychological sense of the fluidity of consciousness, blurring the distinctions between past, present and future.
WHAT DID THE ARTISTS DO IN THEIR PAINTINGS TO REFLECT
THESE IDEAS?
• The subject was no longer considered from a specific point of view at a moment in time, but built following a selection of successive viewpoints, i.e., as if viewed simultaneously from numerous angles (and in four-dimensions) with the eye free to roam from one to the other.
WHAT DID THE ARTISTS DO IN THEIR PAINTINGS TO REFLECT
THESE IDEAS?
• Imagine walking through the city, looking up at buildings and down on the foot path and behind you at the cars.
• The artists tried to show all of these viewpoints in one image rather form one viewing point.
• The best known Cubists were Picasso, Braque, Leger.
ANALYTICAL CUBISM
Seated Nude, Picasso 1909
The most famous Cubist artist was Pablo Picasso.
In the early years of cubism, Picasso constructed his images using small facets, or geometric planes, and represented objects from different viewpoints.
Many critics of the period believed the artist aimed to represent reality in a new, almost scientific manner.
ANALYTICAL CUBISM
However, as this atmospheric painting shows, Picasso could use this technique for expressive ends. Here, the woman has been all but stripped of her humanity and appears strangely mechanistic. At the same time, Picasso demonstrates his awareness of tradition in her pose and in the play of light within the
SYNTHETIC CUBISM
• Three musicians is a large painting measuring more than 2 metres wide and high.
• It is painted in the style of Synthetic Cubism and gives the appearance of cut paper.
• Picasso paints The Three Musicians made of flat, brightly coloured, abstract shapes in a shallow, box-like room.
‘The Three Musicians’Picasso 1921
SYNTHETIC CUBISM
On the left is a clarinet player, in the middle a guitar player, and on the right a singer holding sheets of music. Three Musicians is a perfect example of Picasso's Cubist style. In Cubism, the subject of the artwork is transformed into a sequence of planes, lines, and arcs.
SYNTHETIC CUBISM
Cubism has been described as an intellectual style because the artists analysed the shapes of their subjects and reinvented them on the canvas.
The viewer must reconstruct the subject and space of the work by comparing the different shapes and forms to determine what each one represents.
Through this process, the
SYNTHETIC CUBISM
• ‘The Weeping Woman’
was painted by Picasso
in 1937.
• It was in response to
the bombing of the
town of Guernica
during the Spanish civil
war to express the
suffering of the people
there.
‘The Weeping Woman’ Pablo Picasso 1937Oil paint 60x49cm
SYNTHETIC CUBISM
It is an image we can all relate to.The painting shows multiple viewpoints, flattened picture plane forming colouredshapes. These effects allow us to enter into the overwhelming grief of the woman rather than just being a passive observer.
‘Guernica’ Pablo Picasso
Probably Picasso's most famous work, Guernicais certainly the his most powerful political statement, painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi's devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during Spanish Civil War.
Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians.
This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace.
On completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention.
DAVID HOCKNEY
In the early 1980s, Hockney
began to produce photo
collages, which he called
"joiners”, first using polaroid
prints and subsequently
35mm, commercially-
processed colour prints.
Using polaroid snaps or
photolab-prints of a single
subject, Hockney arranged a
patchwork to make a
DAVID HOCKNEY
An early photomontage was
of his mother.
Because the photographs
are taken from different
perspectives and at slightly
different times, the result is
a work that has an affinity
with cubism, one of
Hockney's major aims—
discussing the way human
vision works.
DAVID HOCKNEY
Some pieces are landscapes, such as Pearblossom Highway #2,others portraits, such as Kasmin 1982,and My Mother, Bolton Abbey, 1982.
While working on a painting of a living room and terrace in Los Angeles, he took Polaroid shots of the living room and glued them together, not intending for them to be a
DAVID HOCKNEY
On looking at the final composition, he realized it created a narrative, as if the viewer moved through the room.
David Hockney
David Hockney
ASSESSMENT TASK IDEAS
• Each group must research and communicate
their ideas in the form of a poster on one of
the following questions:
1. How does the art of cubism reflect the
society and outlook of the artists of the
time around 1907?
2. How did the cubist artists communicate
their ideas through analytical cubism?
Use at least 4 artworks of the most famous
cubist artists to explain your research.
ASSESSMENT TASK IDEAS
3. How did the cubist artists
communicate their ideas through
synthetic cubism?
Use 3-4 of Picasso’s artworks to
explain your research.
4. How did the artist David Hockney’s
‘joiners’, photo collage works, reflect
a modern interpretation of cubism?
Discuss 4 examples.
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