Cubism went from 1907 to 1920's and began in Paris, France. It soon became one of the most influentional arts of all time. Famous cubist painters included Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris of Spain and Georges Braque, Paul Cezanne, Robert Delaney, Fernand Leger, Albert Gleizes, Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp and Roger de la Fresnage of France. Famous cubist scultors were Pablo Picasso of Spain, Raymond Duchamp-Villon of France and Russian-Americans Jacques Lipchitz and Alexsandr Archipenko. Cubists shunned traditional ways of portraying reality, atmosphere, light and perspective. They rejected all emotion and storytelling in works of art as well. Instead, they concentrated on how to represent a form in its purest way. This was done by showing many different aspects at once on a 2 dimentional of 3 dimentional plane. Forms were showed using basic geometric shapes such as the quadrilateral, cone, clyander and sphere. There are basically two groups of cubist art; painting and sculpture. The cubist movement took place mostly in painting, though sculpture deffinently changed. There were three basic types of cubism; primitive cubism, analytical cubism and synthetic cubism.
Primitive cubism began in 1907 and went until 1908. The painting D'Avignon Young Ladies by Pablo Picasso painted in 1907, really kicked off the cubist movement. Paul Cezanne's doctrine of cubism during this time defined what cubism was made of. "Every thing in nature takes it's form from the sphere, cone or clyander." This quote was the basis of painting for seven years. Paul Cezanne's influence was most noted in Georges Braque's work Road near L'Estaque. The Vase, Bowl, Lemon by Picasso in 1907 is another example.
Click here to see The Vase, Bowl and Lemon!Analytical cubism went from approximately 1908 to 1912. In this period, cubists explored the pure form of subjects. To do this, the artists mentally broke the subject into flat planes and arranged them in complex, overlapping relationships. Artists used only grays, browns, dark greens, ochre, dark yellows and monochrome in the works to maintain an emotionless scene. Picasso's Ma Jolie from 1912 is a classic example of this technique. Click here to see Ma Jolie! Georges Braque painted Pool Landscape in 1908.
Synthetic cubism began in 1912 through the 1920's. During this time, artists felt freer to use more colors.The pictures were more realistic looking but still were based on geometric shapes. Artists instead, showed many view that would not be possible in real life. Yellows, reds, greens and other bright colors were being used. Artsits like Fernand Leger really came out.Geometric objects were being mixed with regular forms in bright colors. The Guitar by Juan Gris painted in 1913 is a good example of this mix.
As you can see, geometry is a major part of cubist art. Geometry dominates the creation of the art and how is is formed.At the time, Braque and Picasso did not know that they were developing cubism and publisizing geometry at the same time.Even if they didn't know it, we thank them for starting a new way of thinking(that happened to include geometry as a major part).
If you would like to an example of a process cubist artists might use click here !
Cubist Art Links
Summery of Cubism
Cubism at the Webmuseum
History of Cubism
Cubism in the Electronic Library
