The Style Paved The Way for Pure Abstraction
One of the most influential art movements of the early twentieth century and one that remains a major source of inspiration for many artists today is Cubism. You may wonder, what is Cubism, how did it get started and why is it so important?
This article was published in 2017 and has been updated in 2024.
Banner image: Detail of “Still Life before an Open Window” by Juan Gris, 1915, oil on canvas, 45.63″ x 35″. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo: Public Domain. en.wikipedia.org
Pablo Picasso, 1910, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), oil on canvas, 100.3 x 73.6 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Public Domain en.wikipedia.org
First of all, Cubism marked a major turning point in the whole evolution of modernist art. It is credited for having paved the way for the pure abstraction that dominated Western art for the next 50 years. It inspired future movements including Futurism, Constructivism, Dada and Surrealism.
Its influence was also felt in the field of literature, most notably in the writings of Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and William Faulkner, who applied the principles of abstract language, repetition and use of multiple narrators. And, in music, the composer Igor Stravinsky credited Cubism for having an impact on his work.
Georges Braque, 1908, Le Viaduc de L’Estaque (Viaduct at L’Estaque), oil on canvas, 28.74″ x 23.62″, Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Public Domain in the U.S. en.wikipedia.org
The term is broadly used in association with a wide variety of art produced in Paris (Montmartre, Montparnasse and Puteaux) during the 1910s and extending through the 1920s. The movement was pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, joined by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger and Juan Gris.
The French art critic Louis Vauxcelles coined the term Cubism after seeing the landscapes Braque had painted in 1908 at L’Estaque in emulation of Cézanne. The painting Le Viaduc de L’Estaque above is one of those paintings. Vauxcelles called the geometric forms in the highly abstracted works “cubes.”
Paul Cézanne, The Bridge of Trois-sautets, watercolor, 16.1″ × 20.8″. Photo: Public Domain.
The late works of Paul Cézanne’s representation of three-dimensional form are credited as being primary influences that led to Cubism. In addition, other influences on early Cubism have been linked to Primitivism and non-Western sources.
In Cubist work up to 1910, the subject of a picture was usually discernible. During Analytic Cubism (1910–12), also called “hermetic,” Picasso and Braque so abstracted their works that they were reduced to just a series of overlapping planes and facets mostly in near-monochromatic browns, grays, or blacks.
The Cubist painters rejected the inherited concept that art should copy nature, or that artists should adopt the traditional techniques of perspective, modeling, and foreshortening. They dismantled traditional perspective and modeling in the round in order to emphasize the two-dimensional picture plane.
They reduced and fractured objects into geometric forms, and then realigned these within a shallow, relief-like space. They also used multiple or contrasting vantage points.
By taking these measures, they destroyed traditional “illusionism” in painting and radically changed the way we see the world.
Juan Gris, 1915, Still Life before an Open Window, oil on canvas, 45.63″ x 35″. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo: Public Domain. en.wikipedia.org
Unlike Picasso and Braque, whose Cubist works were practically monochromatic, Juan Gris was known for painting with bright harmonious colors in daring, novel combinations in the manner of his friend Matisse.
Gris painted in the style of Analytical Cubism, a term he devised. After 1913 he began his transition to Synthetic Cubism, using papier collé or, collage. From late 1916 through 1917 his art took on a greater simplification of geometric structure in which the distinction between objects and their composition as well as his subject matter and background became blurred.
It’s important to note that Picasso and Braque also introduced the Cubist collage as an important new modern art form. The origins of collage can be traced back hundreds of years, but this technique made a dramatic reappearance as an art form of novelty by these artists. They used fragments of mass-produced popular culture into pictures, thereby changing the very definition of art.
Fernand Léger, Still Life with a Beer Mug, 1921, oil on canvas. oil on canvas. 36″ x 23.5″ (92.1 x 60 cm.). Photo: Public Domain in the U.S.
Another artist in the Cubist movement is Fernand Léger. In 1911 the hanging committee of the Salon des Indépendants placed together the painters identified as ‘Cubists’. Léger, along with Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Robert Delaunay and Fernand Léger were responsible for revealing Cubism to the general public for the first time as an organized group.
Sonia Delaunay and Robert Delaunay and “Orphic Cubism”
Sonia and Robert Delaunay were known for creating relationships between colors and forms, and the simultaneous existence of multiple realities in their compositions. They aptly named their style “Simultanism”. In an exhibition of their art the art critic Guillaume Apollinaire named this new style “Orphic Cubism” or “Orphism”. In this mode of creative expression simultaneous design occurs when one design, when placed next to another, affects both.
Sonia pointed out that although she used a language of forms similar to that of the Cubists, she had no intellectual goals in common with them. Her forms were only vessels for color. She stated, “If there are geometric forms, it is because these simple and manageable elements have appeared suitable for the distribution of colors whose relations constitute the real object of our search.”
Sonia Delaunay, Prismes électriques, oil on canvas, 250 x 250 cm, created in 1914. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Photo: Public domain. This painting is an example of her style named “Simultanism”.
“Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection”
Over the past 40 years, Leonard A. Lauder, the philanthropist and cosmetics billionaire, has selectively acquired masterpieces and seminal works to comprise the most important collection of Cubist Art that has ever existed in a private collection. Lauder, who began developing his love for Cubism in elementary school, has promised to give his entire collection, currently consisting of more than 80 works of art and growing, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Several years ago the museum presented a major exhibition “Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection” which featured paintings, collages, drawings, and sculpture by the four preeminent Cubist artists: Georges Braque Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, and Pablo Picasso.
When Lauder was asked why he decided to gift the Metropolitan Museum such an extraordinary collection, he stated, “I wanted to transform a museum… and I believe it will transform the Met.”
This article was very informative on a topic which I was researching. I would like to see the work of more cubism masters
Bailey, we would like to share more images by master Cubist artists and will continue searching. It’s not easy to find images that are in the public domain that permit us to publish.
this was very helpful