cubism

—cubist, n. —cubistic, adj.

/kyooh"biz euhm/, n. (sometimes cap.) Fine Arts.

a style of painting and sculpture developed in the early 20th century, characterized chiefly by an emphasis on formal structure, the reduction of natural forms to their geometrical equivalents, and the organization of the planes of a represented object independently of representational requirements.

[ < F cubisme (1908); see CUBE¹, -ISM]

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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. Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) signaled the new style, which was inspired by African sculpture and the later paintings of Paul Cézanne. Cubist work emphasized the flat, two-dimensional, fragmented surface of the picture plane, rejecting perspective, foreshortening, modeling, and chiaroscuro in favour of geometric forms. The work made in this style from 1910 to 1912 is often referred to as Analytical Cubism. Paintings executed during this period show the breaking down, or analysis, of form. Artists favoured right-angle and straight-line construction and colour schemes that were nearly monochromatic. After 1912 the phase known as Synthetic Cubism began. 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. Many subsequent 20th-century avant-garde movements were influenced by the experimentation of the Cubists.

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▪ art

      highly influential visual arts (art) style of the 20th century that was created principally by the artists Pablo Picasso (Picasso, Pablo) and Georges Braque (Braque, Georges) in Paris between 1907 and 1914. The Cubist style emphasized the flat, two-dimensional surface of the picture plane, rejecting the traditional techniques of perspective, foreshortening, modeling, and chiaroscuro, and refuting time-honoured theories that art should imitate nature. Cubist painters were not bound to copying form, texture, colour, and space; instead, they presented a new reality in paintings (painting) that depicted radically fragmented objects.

      Cubism derived its name from remarks that were made by the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who derisively described Braque's 1908 work Houses at L'Estaque as being composed of cubes. In Braque's painting, the volumes of the houses, the cylindrical forms of the trees, and the tan-and-green colour scheme are reminiscent of Paul Cézanne (Cézanne, Paul)'s landscapes, which deeply inspired the Cubists in their first stage of development (until 1909). It was, however, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, painted by Picasso in 1907, that presaged the new style; in this work, the forms of five female nudes become fractured, angular shapes. As in Cézanne's art, perspective is rendered through colour, with the warm reddish-browns advancing and the cool blues receding.

      The movement's development from 1910 to 1912 is often referred to as Analytical Cubism. During this period, the work of Picasso and Braque became so similar that their paintings are almost indistinguishable. Analytical Cubist paintings by both artists show the breaking down, or analysis, of form. Picasso and Braque favoured right-angle and straight-line construction, though occasionally some areas of their paintings appear sculptural, as in Picasso's Girl with a Mandolin (1910). They simplified their colour schemes to a nearly monochromatic scale (hues of tan, brown, gray, cream, green, or blue were preferred) in order not to distract the viewer from the artist's primary interest—the structure of form itself. The monochromatic colour scheme was suited to the presentation of complex, multiple views of the object, which was reduced to overlapping opaque and transparent planes. These planes appear to move beyond the surface of the canvas rather than to recede in depth. Forms are generally compact and dense in the centre of an Analytical Cubist painting, growing larger as they diffuse toward the edges of the canvas, as in Picasso's Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (1909–10). In their work from this period, Picasso and Braque frequently combined representational motifs with letters; their favourite motifs were musical instruments, bottles, pitchers, glasses, newspapers, and the human face and figure.

 Interest in this subject matter continued after 1912, during the phase generally identified as Synthetic Cubism. Works of this phase emphasize the combination, or synthesis, of forms in the picture. Colour assumes a strong role in these works; shapes, while remaining fragmented and flat, are larger and more decorative. Smooth and rough surfaces may be contrasted with one another, and frequently foreign materials, such as newspapers or tobacco wrappers, are pasted on the canvas in combination with painted areas. This technique, known as collage, further emphasizes the differences in texture and, at the same time, poses the question of what is reality and what is illusion.

      While Picasso and Braque are credited with creating this new visual language, it was adopted and further developed by many painters, including Fernand Léger (Léger, Fernand), Robert (Delaunay, Robert) and Sonia Delaunay (Delaunay, Sonia), Juan Gris (Gris, Juan), Roger de la Fresnaye (La Fresnaye, Roger de), Marcel Duchamp, Albert Gleizes, and Jean Metzinger. Though primarily associated with painting, Cubism also exerted a profound influence on 20th-century sculpture (Western sculpture) and architecture (Western architecture). The major Cubist sculptors were Alexander Archipenko (Archipenko, Alexander), Raymond Duchamp-Villon (Duchamp-Villon, Raymond), and Jacques Lipchitz (Lipchitz, Jacques). The adoption of the Cubist aesthetic by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier (Corbusier, Le) is reflected in the shapes of the houses he designed during the 1920s.

Additional Reading

Major histories of the Cubist movement include Robert Rosenblum, Cubism and Twentieth-Century Art (1960, reissued 2001); John Golding, Cubism: A History and Analysis, 1907–1914, 3rd ed. (1988); Douglas Cooper, The Cubist Epoch (1970, reissued 1994); Mark Roskill, The Interpretation of Cubism (1985); David Cottington, Cubism (1998); and Neil Cox, Cubism (2000). William Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism (1989), is an extensive exhibition catalog. The links between Cubism and other avant-garde practices are discussed in two recent sources: L.C. Breunig (ed.), The Cubist Poets in Paris: An Anthology (1995); and Eve Blau and Nancy J. Troy (eds.), Architecture and Cubism (1997).

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