Movement in the visual arts created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris between 1907 and 1914. They were later joined by Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay, and others. The name derives from a review that described Braque's work as images composed of cubes.

Exploring Art Style

Cubism began as an intellectual revolt against the artistic expression of previous eras. In theory, the Cubists justified their experiments as a search to uncover the essential structure of an object and its relation to other parts of a composition.

Among the specific elements abandoned by the cubists were the sensual appeal of paint texture and color, subject matter with emotional charge or mood, the play of light on form, movement, atmosphere, and the illusionism that proceeded from scientifically based perspective.

Cubist work emphasized the flat, two-dimensional, fragmented surface of the picture plane, rejecting perspective, foreshortening, modeling, and chiaroscuro in favour of geometric forms. Artists favoured right-angle and straight-line construction and colour schemes that were nearly monochromatic.

To replace these they employed an analytic system in which the three-dimensional subject (usually still life) was fragmented and redefined within a shallow plane or within several interlocking and often transparent planes.

Cubist painters such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris were profoundly affected by the art of Paul Cézanne, who maintained that natural forms could be reduced to simple geometric figures such as the cube, the sphere, and the cylinder.

The Cubists also admired the art of so-called primitive cultures such as those of Africa and Egypt. Cubism made a decisive break with the centuries-old Western tradition of illusionistic representation, and in so doing initiated a revolution in the visual arts that all subsequent painters dealt with in some way.

Analytic phase

In the analytic phase (1907–12) the cubist palette was severely limited, largely to black, browns, grays, and off-whites. In addition, forms were rigidly geometric and compositions subtle and intricate. Cubist abstraction as represented by the analytic works of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris intended an appeal to the intellect. The cubists sought to show everyday objects as the mind, not the eye, perceives them—from all sides at once. The trompe l'oeil element of collage was also sometimes used.

Synthetic phase

Works from this phase emphasize the combination, or synthesis, of forms in the picture. Colour assumes a strong role in the work; shapes, while remaining fragmented and flat, are larger and more decorative; and collage is often used.

During the later, synthetic phase of cubism (1913 through the 1920s), paintings were composed of fewer and simpler forms based to a lesser extent on natural objects. Brighter colors were employed to a generally more decorative effect, and many artists continued to use collage in their compositions.

The works of Picasso, Braque, and Gris are also representative of this phase.

Scope of Cubism

In painting the major exponents of cubism included Picasso, Braque, Jean Metzinger, Gris, Duchamp, and Léger.

The chief segments of the cubist movement included the Montmartre-based Bâteau-Lavoir group of artists and poets (Max Jacob, Guillaume Apollinaire, Gertrude and Leo Stein, Modigliani, Picabia, Delaunay, Archipenko, and others); the Puteaux group of the Section d'Or salon (J. Villon, Léger, Picabia, Kupka, Marcoussis, Gleizes, Apollinaire, and others); the Orphists (Delaunay, Duchamp, Picabia, and Villon; see orphism); and the experimenters in collage who influenced cubist sculpture (Laurens and Lipchitz).

Cubist Inspiration and Influence

In painting the several sources of cubist inspiration included the later work of Cézanne; the geometric forms and compressed picture space in his paintings appealed especially to Braque, who developed them in his own works. African sculpture, particularly mask carvings, had enormous influence in the early years of the movement. Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907; Mus. of Modern Art, New York City) is one of the most significant examples of this influence. Within this revolutionary composition lay much of the basic material of cubism.

The cubist break with the tradition of imitation of nature was completed in the works of Picasso, Braque, and their many groups of followers. While few painters remained faithful to cubism's rigorous tenets, many profited from its discipline. Although the cubist groups were largely dispersed after World War I, their collective break from visual realism had an enriching and decisive influence on the development of 20th-century art. It provided a new stylistic vocabulary and a technical idiom that remain forceful today.

In Nutshell

Terminology
Term coined in 1908 by Louis Vauxcelles after hearing Matisse refer to a painting by Braque as nothing but "little cubes." Like Impressionism and Fauvism, the term was originally derogatory.
Artists
Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, and Raymond Duchamp-Villon.
Timeline
c. 1907-1918.
Started In
France.
About
Analytic Cubism (earlier phase of Cubism): subject shown as if seen from several angles simultaneously (traditional perspective is abandoned); fragmented space. Synthetic Cubism (later phase of Cubism): separate elements are brought together in a layered collage look. Lettering sometimes added, as well as real materials (newspapers, labels, etc.).
Theme
Portraits, figure studies, still lifes, landscapes.
Art Style
Analytic Cubism: dull, muddy, facets of color. Objects and background treated with similar concern. Synthetic Cubism: collage look, stencils, actual materials, usually vibrant color.
Known Work
PICASSO, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910 (Analytic Cubism) and PICASSO, Still Life with Chair Caning, 1912 (Synthetic Cubism).
PICASSO, Girl with a Mandolin, 1910 (Analytic Cubism) and PICASSO, Still Life with Chair Caning, 1912 (Synthetic Cubism).
Inspiration
Cézanne's later work; African, Oceanic and Iberian sculpture; Rousseau's "primitivism."
Become Inspiration Of
Orphism, Futurism, Cubo-Futurism, Constructivism, and Art Deco.