Discuss the Ideas Behind the Development of Cubism FINAL

8/4/2019 Discuss the Ideas Behind the Development of Cubism FINAL

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Discuss the ideas behind the development of

Cubism

I chose to discuss and to explore the development of Cubism because I consider it

one of the most important movements of modern art and even art history, due to

the novelty that it brings in understanding and relating the space.

Despite the fact that in many books and documents Cubism appears like a

movement which has been developed at the beginning of 1907, Cubism has no birth

certificate because there is a long history behind the development of it.

After 1900, the evolution of art has accelerated in a way that we have never seen

before. The existence of a current could be reduced even for a few years and most

of them could exist at the same time. The artist of the 20th century will have as

task the demolishing of old traditions. The form, the space, the color-all will suffer

major changes specific to the period of avant-garde.

After the discovery of the perspective in the Renaissance, Cubism was the most

important revolution in the history of painting. Like many stylistic terms of art

history, the word cubism was first used ironically, in this case by a critic,

observing that Braque reduced everything in his paintings to small cubes. Great

innovators in terms of singular vision, by using multiple perspectives in the same

painting, cubist painters reordered and fragmented the forms of an object, so that

painting was not a window through which an image could be contemplated, but was

rather a flat surface on which the artist was arranging his reply. Suddenly, the

artists were free to rearrange the reality in any way they felt that it would fit.

Starting with the Impressionist movement and strongly influenced by Cezannes

work and even Ingress and Gauguins work, Cubists looked at the human figure

with different eyes.

Cezannes man and women bathers were elements of nature and elements of

painting-no more and no less; Gauguin and Van Gogh began to disregard the

convention governing the representation of the human face, to depart from the

colors that apparently characterize it; Matisse painted a red nude, a Male Nude

whose volumes are rough-hewn as if with an axe. Picasso painted a self-portrait

slashing the face with green.( Daix 1983 p18 )

There are several stages in the development of Cubism. The first part is based on

Cezannes art who treats nature as a sphere, cylinder, cone and also has the

tendency of eliminating the perspective which is evident. All of us started from

Cezanne as Fernand Leger said ( Daix 1983 p10 ). Whoever understands Cezanne

will already have an inkling of Cubism( Daix 1983 p10 ) The first major branch of

Cubism known as Analytic Cubism (both radical and influential) corresponds with

a period in which artists gave geometric aspect to their paintings and tended to

fragment forms and surfaces, this fragmentation also corresponding to their


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analysis which is purely an intellectual operation. Another specific aspect of the

Analytic Cubism is the two dimensions of space that they tended to give to their

canvases, the color which became monochrome and the light which didn't have a

definite source in the paintings but it had clear edges (main artists- Picasso,

Braque). The second phase is Synthetic Cubism. This time the volumes are coming

to divide into facets by letting the air and light circulate into the spaces (the spacestill being two dimensional). There isnt obvious light, the color becoming brighter

and there is also the introduction of lettering in the painting from newspapers, for

example (see figure 1). Collage is a new innovation that Synthetic Cubists bring

(they build an image using things cut from magazines). The sculpture has suffered

lots of changes in this period of Synthetic Cubism, by using cardboard and playing

around the space (see figure)(main artists- Picasso, Braque, Gris, Leger, Laurens).

There is also an extensional phase of Cubism outside France (Russia, Germany,

United States, England), after the development of the two latter phases, but the

current developed in this period tends to look more abstract. Even though this was

the first reaction of the viewers, the paintings from the Analytic Cubism and the

Synthetic Cubism were not abstract, they just reinterpreted the space and they

always wanted to keep a connection with the reality.

One of the most representative artists of this period is Pablo Picasso. There are

indeed many artists who have joined him, such as his closest friend, George Braque,

but in Picassos art, Cubism is occurring in all stages of development. Picasso was

not always cubist; he experimented various things until becoming one. Firstly, he

was influenced by Cezannes art that tended to give an appearance of geometric

forms and to eliminate the optical illusion of perspective; color is more important

and it has the role of expressing feelings and communicating with the viewer. And

we can see echoes in the Three women bathing of Cezanne, in the DemoisellesdAvignon (see figure 2 and 3). But he also became really interested in Ingress

work and composition, even in the most classical of his paintings (see figure 4 and

5).In his nude, Picasso had often added extra vertebrae just as Ingres did in his

Large Odalisque. (Daix 1983 p20 ) The Iberian Sculpture that he saw, gave him

the idea of simplification and the solidity but he did not wanted to copy it, he tried it

just as an experiment (see figure 6 and 7). Another profound influence on him was

the primitive art, discovered by Picasso in an exhibition of tribal art from Africa and

Oceania, opened in Paris, which he described as a true revelation. He felt especially

attracted, as inspiration, by the deformation of human facial features and flattering

shape in two-dimensional representation, with features in relief, as in the masks

originating from Central Africa (see figure 8). Still life with cane chair was one of

the first synthetic cubist style work (see figure 9) work built by applying external

factors, such as paper, instead of painting it entirely. The first phase of Cubism

Analytical Cubism had the effect of a radical innovation, while the second phase,

Synthetic Cubism, was in some perspective more detached. Since the Renaissance,

European painters used only colour, as a means of expressing the artists vision.

Nobody but Picasso borrowed elements from the outside, apparently arbitrarily, in


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order to stick them together in a single composition. The Synthetic Cubism that

allowed the artist to use colour more vivid than in the pas, had been limited by

issues of formal order in Analytical Cubism, where form, not colour, was the main

factor, but now, fade to gray and brown tones prevailing in their range, could be

ungraded with more vibrant colours, obtained by objects placed together in

collages. But the painting which put Picasso in the spotlight was DemoisellesdAvignon the most important single picture which the century has so far

produced ( Daix 1983 p31 ). This painting reflects actually the impact of Negro Art

in Picassos work and the influence taken from Cezanne's composition. This

disturbing picture marks a decisive change in 20th century art. Breaking the

tradition, the young Picasso, has created a new artistic language. We could see that

Picasso created disagreeing paintings with brown over the character from the left

and crating to the women from the right facets like masks. The character who stays

squatter, also suffered severe deformation and the woman is represented in terms

of front and rear at the same time and the asymmetrical eyes are painted in

contrasting colour, while the nose forms a curve, like a sew along the face. Such

images evoke both tribal masks and horribly distorted faces of patients of syphilis

that Picasso studied in the prison of the hospital st. Lazare (see figure 10). The

fragmented drapery with its sharp creases with white lighting effects is reminiscent

of El Greco but shows signs of the influence of Cezannes technique, the

representation of space by planes and facets, as a look toward the future bold

cubist art. Picasso painted also cubist portraits; however, in his non-cubist work

was, above all, a painter of human facets. Also, despite the style of modern art,

Picasso was strongly influenced by the art of the past, for example he painted a

series of works based on the work of the most famous Spanish painter of his

predecessors, Diego Velazquez, whose work dates on the 17th century. (see figure

11 and 12)

Looking back upon it now, we begin to understand why Cubism cannot be defined

as simply a matter of painting and sculpture. It was more than that. It has brought

about a transformation of vision, in the same way that the invention of perspective

had transformed mans vision five hundred years before. And by doing so it has

amounted to a transformation of the human intelligence and its representation of

the world. In this sense Cubism has been indeed the birth certificate of 20th century

art.(Daix 1983 p153)

Despite the fact that cubism has raised much controversy and it had many enemies,

it could be considered as a new beginning for the future artists and can provide amuch more free way of thinking. Cubism was inspired by a wide range of artists

(even some classical) like Cezanne, Gauguin, Ingres, Velazquez and many others,

and the stages that it passed make it one of the most complex current in the history

of art.


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Georges Braque: Tenora

Figure 1


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Cezanne: Three women in bathing

Figure 2


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Pablo Picasso: Demoiselles dAvignon

Figure 3


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Ingres: The Turkish Bath

Figure 4


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Pablo Picasso: The Harem

Figure 5


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Iberian Sculpture Pablo Picasso:

Demoiselles dAvignon (detail)

Figure 6 Figure 7


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African sculpture influence

Figure 8


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Pablo Picasso: Still life with cane chair

Figure 9


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Pablo Picasso: Weeping Woman

Figure 10


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Diego Velazquez: Las Meninas

Figure 11


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Pablo Picasso: Las Meninas

Figure 12

Bibliography


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Daix, (1983) CUBIST AND CUBISM by Macmillan London LTD

Daval, (1979) MODERN ART The Decisive Years 1884-1914 by Macmillan London

LTD

Daval, ( 1981) AVANT-GARDE ART by Macmillan London LTD

Green, ( 1987) CUBISM AND ITS ENEMIES ( Modern Movements and Reaction in

French Art 1916-1928) Yale University Press; New Haven and London

Venturi, (1978) CEZANNE by Macmillan London LTD

Brown, (1986) VELAZQUEZ Painter and Courtier Yale University Press; New Haven

and London

Picon, (1980) Jean-Auguste-Dominique INGRES by Macmillan London LTD

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Discuss the Ideas Behind the Development of Cubism FINAL