Cubism was an avant-garde art movement that revolutionised European painting and sculpture in the early 20th century. The essence of cubism is that instead of viewing subjects from a single, fixed angle, the artist breaks them up into a multiplicity of facets, so that several different aspects/faces of the subject can be seen simultaneously.

It began in 1906 with two artists -- Georges Braque (French) and Pablo Picasso (Spanish) -- who were living in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris, France. They met in 1907, and worked together closely until World War I broke out in 1914.

The term "cubism" was first used by the French art critic Louis Vauxcelles in 1908. ("bizarre cubiques" = cubes). Afterwards the term was in wide use but the two creators of cubism refrained from using it for a long time.

Influences

Picasso and Braque were great innovative artists in search of new ways to express space and form in painting. They were influenced by Paul Cezanne, African tribal art and Iberian sculpture. First they worked alongside one another (1906-1909 pre-cubism) and then started to work hand in hand to further advance their concepts into what was later termed analytical cubism (autumn 1909 - winter 1911/1912), a style in which densely patterned near-monochrome surfaces of incomplete directional lines and modelled forms constantly play against one another. Picasso's painting of the Demosielles d'Avignon is not cubist, however it is considered essential in the development of the movement. In this work Picasso first experiments with seeing the same object (or person in this case) in various directions. Braque was impressed by it and experimented further with this idea. The developments of both men in the field would lead to what would be truly Cubism.

Some art historians have also identified a secondary phase in this analytical period, the Hermetic phase, in which it is characteristic of the works to be very monochromatic and hard to decipher. The painters give clues as to what is being portrayed by leaving some identifiable object (for example a pipe, which will lead to identify a person smoking it) During this moment the cubists near abstraction. It is important that some letters were introduced to the works during this phase , to serve as clues, Braque introduced these which gave inmediate connection to everyday objects like a bottle of Rum or a newpaper.

The second phase of Cubism, beginning in about 1913, was called synthetic cubism. These works of art were composed of distinct superimposed parts - painted or often pasted onto the canvas - and were characterized by much brighter colours, something that they had already tried to reintroduce before, but had been unsuccesful in doing it in a smooth transitory way. This phase constitutes the birth of the collage and of the papier colle, the first invented by Picasso and the second by Braque. The letters which had hinted to the objects, were now the objects themselves, newspaper scraps are among the most usual items the artists pasted to their canvases. They went further by adding contact paper with a wood print, or other types of scraps. Later they pasted advertisements as well. This helped because it is the reintroduction of color into the cubist works.

The Cubism movement, born in the art community of Montmartre and then greatly expanded by the gathering of artists in Montparnasse, was promoted by art dealer Henry Kahnweiler. It became popular so quickly that by 1910 critics were referring to a "Cubist school" of artists influenced by Braque and Picasso. However, many other artists who thought of themselves as 'cubists' went in directions very different from Braque and Picasso, who themselves went through several distinct phases before 1920. Best known cubist artists were:

• Georges Braque
• Marcel Duchamp
• Juan Gris
• Fernand Leger
• Jacques Lipchitz
• Liubov Popova
• Francis Picabia
• Pablo Picasso
• Louis Marcoussis
• Jean Metzinger
• Marie Vassilieff
• Fritz Wotruba

There were also critics (Andre Salamon, Guillaume Apollinaire), poets (Max Jacob, Pierre Reverdy, Gertrude Stein) and following Jacques Lipchitz, other sculptors such as Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Elie Nadelman who were soon drawn into the sphere of cubism. Robert Delaunay practiced what he called Orphic Cubism which became an offshoot group known as the Puteaux Group.

Cubism had a major impact on artists of the first decades of the 20th century and it gave rise to development of new trends in art like: futurism, constructivism and expressionism. It remains one of the most famous art forms today.

Pigeons have been trained to correctly distinguish between cubist and impressionist paintings; see discrimination abilities of pigeons for details.

See also

• Sonia Delaunay Terk
• Lyonel Feininger
• Roger de la Fresnaye
• Amedee Ozenfant
• Jacques Villon
• Piet Mondriaan

External links

• About Cubism and Czech Cubism (http://www.kubista.cz/en/o-kubismu.html)
• Cubism and the Cubists (http://members.lycos.co.uk/cubist_movement/)

Modernism
20th century - Modernity - Surrealism - Existentialism
Modernism (music): 20th century classical music - Atonality - Jazz
Modernist poetry: Modernist poetry in English
Symbolism (arts) - Impressionism - Expressionism - Cubism - Modern architecture - Modern dance
Followed by Post-modernism...

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