CUBISM

1. CUBISM

2. Background Info • Cubism is one of the most influential art styles of the early 20th Century. • It was created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris between 1907 and 1914. • Left a lasting impression on the young artists working in Paris at the time and it laid the foundations of modern art. • The word Cubism came about after a French art critic Louis Vauxcelles, saw landscapes painted by Braque that had been influenced by Cezanne. • He referred to the geometric forms in these abstract works as ‘cubes’.

4. Background info contd. • Picasso and Braque explored ideas and methods of creating art which were highly influential in the 20th century. • The initial influence was African Art, particularly masks and the later paintings of Cezanne. • The first phase of their explorations is called Analytical cubism. They began with limited colours of earth colours and also the colour blue which they eventually reduced to a grange of warm greys. • They tried to represent figures, landscape and still life as they might be seen from a number of different viewpoints or as a person might notice different characteristics at different times. • They did not follow a strict system but like to show everything that might be useful in producing a work of art.

5. ‘Still life with a Violin and a Pitcher(Braque) 1909/1910 oil on canvas • The volume of the objects are fragmented into separate components and then reassembled in a complex manner. • The violin, or its parts at least can be read quite easily, and the pitcher can be found among the tightly painted planes of the surface. • Tones of one colour create the effect of a soft, silvery, transparent light. • His work was very similar to Picassos at this time also.

6. Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler’ (Picasso) 1910 oil on canvas • This painting of Picassos has went a step further. • The two dimensional surface of the canvas is hardly disturbed by the planes of Kahnweiler’s face. • In the next few years, the paintings of Braque and Picasso were almost completely abstract. • A series of lines, marks and tones were applied in a painterly way to a flat surface. • Having achieved this freedom from the description of reality, they moved on to the second phase of their development which has been called Synthetic Cubism

7. Synthetic Cubism • Both artists began to use materials such as sand, sawdust, plaster, metal filings and even ash mixed with their paints to create surface texture. • Then Braque added wood grain effects and Picasso introduced letters and numbers. • Eventually they began to stick objects to the surface of the paintings-tickets, pieces of newspaper, printed images, which were ‘real objects’ and not representations. • In Nature Morte a la chaise Cannee he Used a piece of oil cloth to imitate the Canning of the chair.

8. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) • A child prodigy, son of an art teacher/painter-he mastered painting and drawing skills as a child and graduated form art college while still a teenager. • Born in Malaga-went to college in Barcelona and Madrid and absorbed influences from old masters and modern painters. • He is the artist who represents modern art according to some people. • He was not in fact the most revolutionary artist of the 20th century but his name stood for everything that was daring, aggressive and extravagant. • He turned convention upside down and bewildered the public with unexpected and sensational innovations. • This earned him the reputation of an outrageous modern artist.

9. The BLUE period • He came to Paris in 1904 and started painting his ‘blue period’. • This was when he painted melancholy scenes concerning the difficulties of life for ordinary people. • He painted young, sad, bloodless women, sickly children and old an emaciated beggars. • ‘The Old Guitarist’ (1903) shows this style with hints of El Greco's elongated figures, the blue colouring adding to the sense of despair.

11. The ROSE period • Three years later he painted harlequins, acrobats and itinerant circus folk in pinks or rose colours. • The figures were still solemn and unsmiling but not quite as mournful and depressed-looking as in the previous period.

13. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon • This was one of the most powerful paintings of the century. • It was considered the single most famous modern picture and it made cubism possible. • This led Braque and Picasso to develop Cubism. • In an attempt to fuse several viewpoints at one time, the figures are stylised with limbs almost dislocated. • The faces are distorted like African masks and the features are wrenched out of line with one another. • The source for the strange faces of the women was Picassos collection of African masks.

15. The energy and distortion in African art greatly appealed to him. • The picture also broke new ground in its brutal sexual frankness. • The women are prostitutes on show and even now the distorted angles and eyes that stare straight at the viewer are disturbing. • Picasso himself had a great fear of venereal disease (STI’s) and the painting seems to reflect this. • There seems to be a threat in the women stony glazes and even the melon in the foreground looks like a sharp weapon.

16. After Braque was seriously wounded in the first world war, Picasso painted alone. • In 1917 he went to Rome to design sets for famous Russian ballet company. • He was introduced to a new and more glamorous social world. • He married a dancer names Olga Khokova. • He was inspired by his Italian experience to paint female nudes in the New-classical tradition of Ingres, the great 19th century artist. • Between 1920 and 1924 Picasso painted his last Cubist works, one of which was ‘Three Musicians’ • His work changed as he searched continuously for a way to express himself with complete freedom • As an artist he watched the oncoming tide of the war in the 1930s with anguish.

17. The Three Musicians • The painting is very large measuring 2 metres wide and high. • Its made of flat brightly coloured abstract shapes in a shallow boxlike room. • The figures are all from the theatre and were inspired by his ballet, set and costume designs. • The colours are flat and brilliant and feature one of Picassos favourite figures, the harlequin. • On the left is a clarinet player, in the middle a guitar player and on the right a singer holding sheets of music.

18. They are dressed as familiar figures: Pierrot, (Pantomime artist) wearing a blue and white suit; harlequin in an orange and yellow diamond-patterned costume and on the right, a friar in a black robe. • In front of Pierrot stands a table with a pipe and other objects while underneath him is a dog, whose belly, legs and tail peep out behind the legs. • Everything is in flat shapes. • Behind the musicians, the light brown floor is in a different place, extending much farther toward the left than the right.

20. The Spanish Civil War • The Spanish civil war greatly upset Picasso and the violence and emotion in his work reflected this. • He painted several versions of Weeping Women as his homeland was torn apart by the war. • The fate of the little Basque town of Guernica caused him to paint one his most poignant works.

21. Guernica (1937 oil on canvas) • The bombing of the town of Guernica by the German Fascists during the Spanish Civil War prompted Picasso to paint this. • He painted it in just over a month for the Spanish Pavilion in the 1937 world fair. • With its combination of Surrealist and cubist imagery in figures and beasts, it hit just the right note for the mood of the time. • It touched peoples consciences and was received with praise and unreserved enthusiasm, making Picasso a world famous artist. • Its one of the greatest expressions of the horrors of war.

22. Considered by many as his masterpiece, it combines symbols and allegories in an almost colourless composition of figures and shapes which describe the destruction and anguish of war. • It is the most powerful condemnation of the brutality of war ever depicted in modern art. • The perpetrators of this violent act are not shown but their presence is everywhere. • It is without doubt one of the milestones in 20th century art and it stands as a symbol of defenders of freedom against all forms of violence and tyranny.

23. The media was always important to Picasso and the painting has the appearance of a screaming newspaper headline. • He was undoubtedly affected by pictures in the London and Paris newspapers of the charred aftermath of the bombing and the eyewitness accounts from correspondents in Bilbao. • The most important, largest and most expressive figure at the centre of the painting is the wounded horse.

24. In contrast, the bull expresses brute force. • The five figures in the huge canvas express surprise, horror, grief, anger and despair.

25. The fallen warrior lies between the horses hooves. In his hand is a broken sword and a flower grows from his clenched fist.

26. A woman throws her arms to the sky as she and the horse are in flames.

27. Another figure, reduced to the simplicity of a face and arm, stretches out of the window to light the scene with the lamp of freedom. She discovers with dazed horror the spectacle of death and destruction.

28. A figure stumbles on her knees towards the screaming horse. • At the side a women raises her head to the sky and cries out in a scream of pain over the body of her dead child. • She and the others seem to cry out not only for the tragedy of the town but in fear for all humanity.

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