Cubism 1907-1922
• Cubism was a truly revolutionary style of modern artdeveloped by Pablo Picasso
• Cubist painting depicts real people, places or objects, but not from a fixed viewpoint.
Instead it will show you many parts of the subject at one time, viewed from different
angles, and reconstructed into a composition of planes, forms and colours.
• artists abandoned perspective
• no realistic modeling of figures
• Inspired by Paul Cezanne’s artwork
• Influenced by African Art
PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
'Bibemus Quarry', 1895 (oil on canvas)
LEFT: Pablo Picasso, 'Head of a Woman', 1907 (oil on canvas)
RIGHT: Dan Mask from West Africa
Two phases of Cubism
1. Analytical (1907-1912)
2. Synthetic (1912- )
1. Analytic Cubism
• objects from various angles
• explored open form, piercing figures and objects
• Here the artist analyzed the subject from many different viewpoints and reconstructed
it within a geometric framework, the overall effect of which was to create an image that
evoked a sense of the subject. These fragmented images were unified by the use of a
subdued and limited palette of colours.
• Around 1912, the styles of Picasso and Braque were becoming predictable. Their images
had grown so similar that their paintings of this period are often difficult to tell apart.
Their work was increasingly abstract and less recognizable as the subject of their titles.
GEORGES BRAQUE (1882-1963)
'Violin and Jug', 1910 (oil on canvas)
Synthetic Cubists 1912 onwards
• use of non-art materials- abstract signs
• Cubism paved the way for non-representational art
• development of Cubism- Paul Cezanne work’s displayed atSalon d'Automne in 1907
• (Cézanne's use of generic forms to simplify nature was incredibly influential to both
Picasso and Braque)
• Cubism was running out of creative steam. In an attempt to revitalise the style and pull
it back from total abstraction, Picasso began to glue printed images from the 'real world'
onto the surface of his still lifes
• Synthetic Cubism moved away from the unified monochrome surfaces of Analytic Cubism
to a more direct, colorful and decorative style. Although synthetic cubist images appear
more abstract in their use of simplified forms, the other elements of their composition
are applied quite traditionally. Interchanging lines, colours, patterns and textures that
switch from geometric to freehand, dark to light, positive to negative and plain to
patterned, advance and recede in rhythms across the picture plain.
PABLO Picasso(1881-1973)
'Still Life with Chair Caning', 1912 (oil on canvas)
Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 -Spanish painter
Blue period 1901-1904
• Monochromatic paintings in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by
other colors
Pablo Picasso, The Old Guitarist, 1903, Art Institute of Chicago
Pablo Picasso, 1901–02, Femme aux Bras Croisés (Woman with Folded Arms)
Rose Period 1904-1906
characterized by a more cheery style with orange and pink colors, and featuring many circus
people, acrobats
Pablo Picasso, 1905, Garçon à la pipe, (Boy with a Pipe), private collection, Rose Period
