Cubism
Introduction
Heralded
as one of the most original and influential artistic movements of
the 20th century, Cubism aggressively challenged Western
conceptions of pictorial representation. The exact date of the
inception of Cubism is debated. Some scholars cite Pablo Picasso’s
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon of 1907, others Georges Braque’s
Houses at L’Estaque of 1908 and still others the first
organized group show by Cubists in Paris in 1911 with works by
Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Jean Metzinger
and Albert Gleizes. The term Cubism, however, was coined in 1908 by
the French art critic Louis Vauxcelles when he described some of
Georges Braque’s paintings as ‘geometric schemas and cubes’. These
initial works of Braque and Picasso comprise what art historians
usually refer to as the first phase of Cubism, or Analytic Cubism.
The early Cubist works of Picasso and Braque assaulted Renaissance
ideals of perspective and illusionism by breaking up the picture
surface into a series of planes, signs and shifting viewpoints.
Volume was rendered in flat planes instead of using tonal modeling
and three-dimensionality was indicated by showing multiple
viewpoints simultaneously.
Sometime in the spring of 1912 Picasso glued a piece of oilcloth printed with a tromp l'oeil chair-caning pattern to a small canvas and named it Still-life with Chair-caning. This was the first Cubist collage and initiated the second major phase of Cubism termed Synthetic Cubism. The artists used collage to further challenge the viewer’s understanding of reality and representation. By creating an image that is a synthesis of pictorial elements, both real and painted, Picasso and Braque challenged the deceptive and artificial nature of illusionistic representation. Although the term Cubism usually refers to these developments of Analytic and Synthetic Cubism in early 20th century France pioneered by Picasso, Braque and others, the impact of Cubist ideas and pictorial forms reverberated throughout Europe and abroad. Cubism profoundly affected the Russian avant-garde, the Italian Futurists and the British Vorticists among others. The Cubist destruction of the traditional Western pictorial system left the door open for radical artistic experimentation that continues today.
