Cubism: characteristics, authors and works

Cubism was the first avant-garde art movement of the 20th century. It was born in 1907 and ended in 1914 by the painters Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. His impact was such that he is considered a precursor of abstraction and artistic subjectivity in its contemporary sense.

The cubist movement establishes, for the first time in history, an authentic break with Western art that, until then, was based on the imitation of nature and the idea of ​​beauty, which was then a great scandal, especially among the most conservatives. But what is cubism? Why is it said that it is a revolutionary movement? What did it contribute to the history of art and Western culture? What is its importance?

Characteristics of cubism

Cubism represents reality through the dominant use of geometric elements, results of analysis and synthesis. Objects are not represented as "they are" or as they "see", but as they have been conceived by the mind, which deconstructs in its essential geometric forms, directing attention to plastic language, observation and analysis. Let's understand how it does it.

Breakdown of the principle of imitation of nature in art

Unlike the predecessor movements, Cubism openly distances itself from naturalistic representation, that is, from the principle of imitation of nature as the final goal of art. This makes it the first proper avant-garde movement. Cubism goes a step further by distancing itself, even, from the idea of ​​representing nature according to the modes of "perception" of sight or emotion, that is, in effects or affects. This is how he achieves plastic deconstruction through analytical means, managing to create in the painting a reality of its own independent of any reference and of any attempt to achieve the verisimilitude.

Synthesis and geometrization

Suppression of perspective and chiaroscuro

Since there is no interest in the imitation of nature or the modes of optical perception, Cubism is not interested in chiaroscuro and perspective, plastic elements at the service of the principle of verisimilitude.

Overlapping planes

Cubism juxtaposes different planes into one. The synthesis becomes total: while it synthesizes the figures to their minimum geometric expression, it also synthesizes in a single plane the different points of view of the object.

Incorporation of non-pictorial techniques

In addition to using oil painting and other common techniques, the Cubists were the first to incorporate non-pictorial techniques by introducing the collage, that is, the use of various materials attached to the surface of the canvas.

Predominance of form over substance

In cubism, visual analysis and the plastic elements themselves have the leading role. For this reason, they do not feel obliged to represent transcendent themes, but everyday life becomes a source of inspiration to be able to develop a concept.

Preference for still life and the human figure

From the above, the interest in subjects such as still life or still life emerges. Musical instruments, fruits and everyday objects are frequent, as well as the human figure stripped of any referential value (mythical, religious, historical or philosophical).

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Historical context of cubism

The characteristics of Cubism start, like any transformation, from a historical process with political, economic, cultural and artistic implications. Many things were changing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Technological development had reached a truly transformative point. The invention of car in 1885 and from Airplane in 1903 the perception of distance and time had changed. The first wireless transmissions by radio in 1895 the communication parameters changed radically. The creation of cinematograph in 1896 it allowed a new conception of the image to which movement was incorporated, with no few consequences for the visual arts.

As if that were not enough, the European monarchical systems began to be replaced by democratic republics, while socialism and communism grew in the face of the socioeconomic dynamics generated by the capitalism. It was evident that the new era that was making its way, this industrialized and massive society, was not seen reflected in the traditional plastic arts, which were still tied to the imitation of nature and / or contents.

Influences of cubism

The conceptualization of cubism also responded to the ideas that, both in the artistic and in the cultural, were swarming at the beginning of the 20th century, and that drew the attention of young artists. Not only were there new ideas, but new ways of looking at the available world were available.

Influence of post-impressionism

The Post-Impressionists had attracted attention in the early 20th century. Young Paris-based artists were particularly moved by a retrospective exhibition of the French painter Paul Cézanne, held in 1907. Cézanne was characterized by reducing the volumes of objects to essential geometric elements such as the cylinder, the cube and the sphere.

The new artists were captivated by the sentence of the post-impressionist Paul Cézanne, for whom “all the forms of nature start from the sphere, the cone and the cylinder”. Therefore, they began to work on the observation and analysis of the image, in order to find its essential geometric elements.

Influence of African sculpture and Iberian art

Towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the imperialism western in Africa and Asia. Europe manifested a renewed interest in the cultural expressions of those peoples, as well as a fascination with new archaeological finds. Various exhibitions of African art and Iberian art were held in Paris that Picasso and other artists had the opportunity to appreciate.

Influence of technological development

The two-dimensional image was no longer limited to just capturing an instant. The cinematographic camera he had managed to make the image a narrative temporal possibility thanks to the invention of the montage technique, introduced by Edwin S. Porter and developed by Griffith. If photography freed painting from imitating nature, cinema freed it from the obligation to tell stories. What to do from then on?

Influence of scientific thought

The artists who developed Cubism were influenced by the theories of Albert Einstein. For the well-known scientist, it was impossible to determine a movement; An object could appear to be still or move according to perspective. Hence, the concept of overlapping perspectives would result.

The origin of cubism

Cubism had its origins in an artistic discussion group installed on the boulevard de Montmartre, in a building called "Bateau-Lavoir”. This building was the residence of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Max Jacob, Kees Van Dongen, Constantin Brancusi, Amedeo Modigliani and other artists.

The discussion group was visited by painters Henri Matisse, who had a great influence on Picasso and Braque, and Diego Rivera. It was also frequented by the writers Jean Cocteau and Guillaume Apollinaire, the latter creator of the text Cubist painters (Les Peintres cubistes), published in 1913. The researcher Blas Matamoro, in an essay entitled Apollinaire, Picasso and poetic cubism (1988), maintains that:

It is said that Matisse was, observing a painting by Braque, in 1908, who compared the composition to a mass of small cubes. The critic Louis Vauxcelles, taking up Matisse, coins the word cubism commenting on a Braque exhibition that year, but it will be Apollinaire who tries the first approximations conceptual concepts to cubist painting, attributing its paternity to Picasso, of whom the cubists would be mere and flat imitators.

(The bold are ours)

Indeed, the first properly cubist canvas was The Avignon ladies by Pablo Picasso, completed in 1907, and this canvas was exhibited in the Bateau-Lavoir building for the first time.

The strategic figure who helped the extraordinary diffusion of Cubism was the writer, art collector and dealer Daniel Kahnweiler, a staunch defender of Cubism and its most important artists: Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and André Derain, although the latter was better known for his work Fauvist. Kahnweiler played a fundamental role in turning his gallery into a center for the dissemination of Cubism.

See also: Analysis of The Avignon ladies by Pablo Picasso.

Stages of cubism

As a movement, three essential stages of Cubism are known, although it is true that some of its postulates remained present both in its creators and in future generations.

Primitive Cubism or Cézannesco Period (1907-1909)

The primitive period is characterized by austerity in color (neutral tones such as grays and browns dominate) and forgo the traditional perspective, focused on a single point, in order to integrate multiple perspectives into a single flat. As subjects, he prefers interior scenes, although eventually he turns to landscape.

Analytical Cubism or Hermetic Cubism (1910-1912)

Analytical Cubism focused on the analysis of reality and its decomposition into planes of the volumes of an object. He completely abandoned the interest in verisimilitude and dabbled in a conceptual proposal. Analytical Cubism sought to combine the three-dimensionality of reality with the two-dimensionality of the pictorial surface.

From the plastic point of view, angles and straight lines abound. The lighting is not real and does not have a single source, but the painter makes it arise from different points. The colorist trend is close to monochromaticism and the preferred tones are chestnut, gray, cream, green and blue. The subjects of representation are usually still lifes with musical instruments, bottles, pipes, glasses, newspapers and, to a lesser extent, the human figure.

Synthetic Cubism (1913-1914)

The synthetic period was characterized by the complete breakdown of all imitative procedures. He used plastic signs; he restored color to its prominence; the surfaces became more spacious and decorative, despite their fragmentation, and the collage, which allowed the exploration of the textures. Thus, on the canvas you could see non-pictorial materials such as cigarette packs, newspaper pages, pieces of glass, cloth and, on many occasions, sand. In this way, synthetic cubism played with the limits between reality and pictorial illusion.

The end of cubism and its importance

Cubism had a very short duration as a movement, since it disappeared in 1914 with the start of the First World War. Even so, the aesthetic proposal of Cubism penetrated the artistic imagination and became a source of inspiration for artists and visual communicators.

Influence of cubism in contemporary art

The first thing to say is that Cubism achieved a fundamental change in Western art: that it was consolidate the valuation of art as an autonomous reality of any content or subject to which it was consecrated.

Although Impressionism had led this way when it turned the attention of the subject towards the modes of representation, still the imitation of nature was present. The Post-Impressionists came closer to the extent that they gave way to their inner world, to their particular way of seeing or feeling.

The Cubists, on the other hand, went further by breaking completely with the dependence on the referent and gave another perspective to the valuation of the referent. concept. That principle of maximum autonomy and maximum freedom, opened the floodgate of creativity and originality in Western art.

The spread of Cubism inspired the creation of new groups such as:

• Orphic Cubism or orphism, by the Frenchman Robert Delaunay, focused on the importance of color and the use of compositional elements created by the artist.
• Puteaux group, also related to Orphism. Some artists were Robert Delaunay himself, Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Francis Picabia, and Alexander Calder.
• Cubofuturism, which involved a combination of Cubism with Italian Futurism. Some important names in this trend were Kazimir Malévich, Oleksandr Arjípenko, Vladimir Baranoff-Rossine and Sonia Delaunay.
• Neoplasticism by Dutchman Piet Mondrian.
• Suprematism Russian by Kazimir Malievich.
• Constructivism sculptural by Vladimir Tatlin.
• Purism, a rational and geometric aesthetic movement promoted by the French Amadeé Ozenfant and Charles Édouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier).

Influence of cubism in graphic design

The most important influence of cubism in graphic design is registered particularly in typographic design. This was made possible by the invention of the collage and the integration of typography to art, which in addition to producing a formal effect, achieved new meanings through the association of ideas.

In this way, Cubism favored the development of design independent of nature. In its synthetic phase, it encouraged the use of signs instead of recognizable figures. He also contributed the use of flat sections of color, urban motifs and precision in the angles. Finally, cubism created the challenge of the interpretation of the subject by means of the attraction towards the new pictorial structure.

See also Artistic movements of the 20th century

Artists representing cubism

Cubism sheltered many artists such as André Derain, Fernand Léger, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, María Blanchard, Henri Le Fauconnier, and many others. Within the group, the most important personalities, both in its creation and in its development, were Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris.

Pablo Picasso (Málaga, 1881 - Mougins, 1973)

He studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid until in 1900 he moved to Paris, where he studied and spent most of his life. He is credited with creating cubism from the canvas The Avignon ladies from 1907. In his mature age he approached figurativeism once more. One of his most famous works is the painting Guernica, inspired by the Spanish Civil War.

See also:

• Analysis and meaning of the painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso.
• Essential works of Pablo Picasso.

Georges Braque (Argenteuil-sur-Seine, 1882 - Paris, 1963)

He was a painter and sculptor. He studied in Paris at the Humbert Academy and at the School of Fine Arts. After meeting Picasso and his painting The Avignon ladies, his work took a turn and he worked side by side with the painter from Malaga, developing the maximum potential of the cubist movement. He was the creator of the collage.

Juan Gris (Madrid, 1987 - Boulogne-sur-Seine, 1927)

His real name was José Victoriano González-Pérez. He was a painter and illustrator. He moved to Paris on the run from the military and found residence in the same building as Picasso and Braque. He joined cubism from 1910 and left the illustration. He worked with a technique of collage specific known as papier collé, which uses paper, cardboard and newspaper. He gave great development to colorism within his cubist work, to which he was attached all his life.

André Derain (Chatou, 1880 - Garches, 1954)

The French painter, illustrator and set designer, initially known for his relationship with Fauvism, a movement in which he achieved undisputed recognition. He had a Cubist period that began around 1908, the year in which he destroyed many of his earlier works. At the end of World War I, Derain returned to traditional art. His passage through Cubism was transitory.

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