Cubism (Art)

Artillery, by Roger de la Fresnaye
(an example of Cubism Art).

Cubism was a very important movement in Art because it caused change to happen in art. It started by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris between the 1907 and 1914, where they worked together and they were the only artist in Cubism at that time. Their main subjects were still lives and portraits. The early time of Cubism there were links from Primitivism and non-Western sources which changed the understanding in Art. Cubism was a very influential movement of the early 20th century. Characteristics of Cubism are that paintings have abstract geometric forms to build up the composition in the paintings. Cubists didn’t want to copy nature or to paint like the traditional techniques of perspective, modelling and foreshortening. Cubism was a modern Art of innovations during the 20^th century. At this time artists thought that the illusion of space and mass became less important. Normally Cubist’s work should have a narrow range of colours. Some more characteristics are that artworks have different viewpoints, overlapping planes and that encourages the viewer to be actively involved in the artwork. Cubism innovations included lettering and collage.

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish artist. He was born in Malaga Spain on the 25^th October 1881 and died in 1973. He was able to draw before he could speak and he started to show his artistic talent from an early age. He was mostly known as Cubist artist who changed Art. He was also a very important artist for the 20^th century. He was a son of an Art teacher so that helped him improve and gives him courage in Art. He lived in Barcelona, Spain then he moved to Paris in 1904. An important painting of Picasso was ‘Les Demoiselles D’Avignon’ which was “revolutionary work” that led to the new movement of Cubism. He worked together with George Braque in the Cubism movement. Another important artwork of Picasso was ‘Collage’ 1912, which was made up of “cloth, newspaper or advertising to his paintings”.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)

 Oil on canvas.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was a very important painting for the Cubism period. This could be described as a “rough painting” and “revolutionary work”. It was done as experimentation as it was the first Cubist painting. It has a flat look without the usual perspective of what we normally see in other paintings. The colours are varied from warm to cool colours. It has a lot of visible outlines which are done boldly. We can notice that at the bottom in the centre of the painting there’s a still life of fruits.

A good description from research I've done: “So far, we have examined the middle figure which relates to Matisse’s canvas; the two masked figures on the right side who refer, by their aggression, to Picasso’s fear of disease; and, we have linked the left-most figure to archaic Iberian sculpture and Picasso’s attempt to elicit a sort of crude primitive directness.”

In my opinion I found this painting very confusing and didn't understand its meanings very well and even the colours make you confused. Also it makes you keep looking at it to make you curious about its meaning and composition.  

Bibliography:

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Sabine Rewald, October 2004, Cubism, [online] Available at: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cube/hd_cube.htm [Accessed 17 April 2014].

BBC, Anon, n.d., Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/picasso_pablo.shtml [Accessed 17 April 2014].

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, James Voorhies, October 2004, Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), [online] Available at: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pica/hd_pica.htm [Accessed 17 April 2014].

Smart History, Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker, Anon, n.d., Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, [online] Available at: http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/les-demoiselles-davignon.html [Accessed 17 April 2014].