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"When we discovered Cubism, we did not have the aim of discovering Cubism. We only wanted to express what was in us.’’
- Pablo Picasso
He was the man behind the heart of Cubist paintings, the unmistakable one, the daunting and spirited Spanish painter, Pablo Picasso. His paintings made people cross-eyed and frown at them, at the onset! No surprise, Picasso was the master of all the chaos and non-conformation as far as forms and shapes were concerned, turning every other subject of painting into literal cubes on the canvas. Yes, cubism started with this great master artist in his non-descriptive studio in Montmartre, Paris, with his controversial painting ‘Les demoiselles d’avignon.’ He was deliberately trying to deconstruct and discard conventional lines, shapes in drawing, playing like a kid possessed with a Lego set. That people were teeming with disgust about this ‘uglifying’ art was a different story. And, it all started with the rejection of ‘Les demoiselles d’avignon’ at its primal phases of creation.
So, what was so radical and initially foreboding about Cubism art that have driven the Avant-Garde painters like Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque so much crazy as to make every painting look like a puzzle that you don’t need to unscramble? Let’s find out more of what is cubism in this blog, taking a brief stroll into the phases of initial repulsion towards the contemporary form of art that mocked conventional patterns, to know what exactly was brewing in the brilliant minds of the cubism artists.
Cubist Art Made Its Entry into Art History: Flouting Conventions
Renaissance mentality had dominated the fate of the subsequent artistic movements, perspectives, conventions till the late nineteenth century Western art in Europe, when a surge of dissent rose amongst the painters and artists. They started getting bored with the linear and naturalistic representations and challenged these norms, trying to find breathing spaces for art to thrive. Cubism, that way was more about embracing mess and throwing away clichéd expressions in art forms. It was a response to the growing discontent about the limitations of traditional art and the sense of space. And that’s how it made its radical entry into art history amidst scoffs and scorns.
Cubist Artists Discarded the Traditional Art Forms:
To break the illusion of linearity and inject greater doses of dynamism into art space were all Picasso and Braque intended as the forerunners of Cubism around 1907 or 1908, when they were closely working on the ground-breaking techniques of cubes in art. Georges Braque had described those days of connection with Picasso in a unique way just like creating geometrical chaos, like painting noses with Rubik’s cubes:
‘The things that Picasso and I said to one another during those years will never be said again, and even if they were, no one would understand them anymore. It was like being roped together on a mountain.’
- George Braque
It was impulsive, introspective, intriguing, and awe-inspiring like the Picasso art - the illusion of space seen from a variegated perspective. Picasso and Braque were hugely inspired by Paul Cezanne who advocated breaking down the traditional nature art forms into geometric shapes, like, cones, cylinders, spherical objects, etc. They noted that traditional linear and fixed POVs were not adequate to handle the complex and increasingly changing pattern of the modern art and something was needed to handle the crisis, to make room for innovations in patterns, lines, and curves, to paint the truth.
It Was Named After Cubist Oddities: Art of Cezanne Turned into Geometry
The revolution was in the making – when artists like Picasso and Braque literally experimented with everyday objects of portrayal to reduce them into geometric shapes and suggestions. Fascinating to note, the name cubism came from the bizarre coinage ‘cubist oddities,’ that was used by art critic Louis Vauxcelles when he studied some of Georges Braque's landscape paintings mimicking Cezanne in a Paris exhibition in 1908. Conventional landscape portrayal and the cubist one was distinguishably different. It ought to be that way!
The Powerhouses Behind Cubist Form: Multiple Perspectives in Art
The Cubism art movement had sparked many controversies and exaggerated reactions from the viewers and connoisseurs of art from its very birth pangs, around 1907 in Paris. People tried to repel at the fragmented reality and the abstract notion of display that caught the fancies of the Cubism artists. They found it ugly, non-sensical, abrupt and far from what art was supposed to be.
Let’s explore some of the curious Cubism perspective and forms:
Having More than One Perspective in a Single Image
The use of varied perspectives in a single portrait, like instead of painting one side of a face they insisted on painting all sides of it at once with eyes on the fore, ears on the side, and perhaps launch a nose into space!
To Have Art and Geometry Put Together
The preachers of this form were keen on breaking images into geometric shapes and forms, like reducing everyday objects into spheres, cylinders, cubes, and cones, etc. - almost like presenting a non-representational reality.
Trying Out Collage and Popular Culture in Cubism
It was a grand assimilation of collage and elements of popular culture that paced up and shaped the cubism context, like the concept of African masks, primitivism and non-Western art forms that intrigued Picasso. Everyday mundane objects were introduced in art which was not so common in the much-celebrated elite art forms following the Renaissance. ‘Les demoiselles d’avignon’ by Picasso was influenced by African art during his visit to the ethnographic museum in the Palais du Trocadéro, Paris.
Theory of Relativity in Art:
Cubist artists were non-believers and sceptics in a way. They didn’t acknowledge the absoluteness and rigidity of time & space, rather invested in the concept of relativity while discarding the myths about absolute time, space and motion. The artists gave more credence to observations and memory and let the viewers enjoy the scene from different perspectives at the same time. Was Einstein a Cubist?!
Cubism Art History and the Branching out Phases
Cubism was celebrated in art in two main phases: Analytic Cubism and Synthetic Cubism.
Analytic Cubism (1910–1912) or the Phase of the Hermetic
In this analytical phase of Cubism, Braque, Pablo Picasso, and other artists concentrated on defragmenting forms into multiple small fragments, overlapping and gathered in a fashion to portray some figure or concept; This was purely breaking down elements of painting to their geometric components using minimalistic or almost monochromatic color palettes. Most earthy tones like browns, blacks, green, and greys were chosen to accentuate the structural form rather than the decoration part. During this Hermetic phase of cubist art the artists preferred motifs with letters, like motifs of still life with glasses, newspapers, human faces and figures, guitars, etc. The use of landscape was much less.
Famous Picasso art like ‘Girl with a Mandolin’ or ‘Violin and Palette’ by Braque can better showcase the complexity and structural innovation of analytical cubism.
Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919) or the Phase of Collage
This was a more relaxed and constructive phase of Cubism rather than breaking and defragmenting forms. More simple compositions, collages, bright hues, use of big-sized colored papers and mixed media forms were introduced in painting and art. The use of wallpapers, newspapers and fabrics came into play that later spearheaded much robust and radical movements like Dadaism and Surrealism. ‘Still Life with Chair Caning’ by Pablo Picasso can be an iconic example of synthetic cubism. It was a rather dynamic and constructive form of expression while he used a piece of oil cloth with a chair-cane pattern, pasted on the oval canvas and painted a figure in it.
How did Cubism Art Respond to a Changing World?
During the initial phase of the twentieth century, the world was open for rare artistic collaborations, exchanges, and experimentations. That is why the highly abstracted cubism of Picasso and Braque was on the cards! It is partly because the world was going through a phase of significant social, political, and cultural assimilations, changes, and transformations back then. So, it was not solely Picasso’s instinct to be the next genius in the making, but it was the impulse and call of the hour. The art scene was in a flux, inviting more fresh talents, ideas, and concepts to pace up with the growing industrialization, urbanization, and the cataclysm of war, which changed the face of human experience to a great extent. Cubism with all its fragmented form and complex dynamics was a perfect fit for the multitude of uncertainties looming large on the fate of the world caught in a mesh of war and disillusionment.
The Legacy of Cubist Paintings Lives on
The symbiotic collaboration of Braque and Picasso was phenomenal to make the Avant-Garde wave smash the conventional rules of art with basic geometry and formless forms. At that time, it was a norm to break rules of artistic expressions. Not only Picasso, artists such as Alexander Archipenko or Marc Chagall challenged the perspective of realism and introduced something as negative space into art. Though Cubism died down giving much space to Dadaism and Surrealism, it laid the foundation for abstract reality, constructivism, futurism, etc. The world got more intuitive minds like Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich and Marcel Duchamp, to think in terms of abstract artworks and expressionism, bold colors, mechanical forms, and geometry.
Now we know that life isn’t all about perfect shapes or symmetry. At times, you need to embrace the ugly, the broken or the fragmented art and place it on a canvas only to paint a masterpiece - if only you have the intuition and gut of Picasso, the Cubist God!
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