20th Century Painting
Cubism
Read the following quote from 20th century critic, Guillaume
Apollinaire:
“Authentic Cubism is the art of depicting new wholes with formal
elements borrowed not from the reality of vision, but from that of
conception. This tendency leads to a poetic kind of painting which
stands outside the world of observation; for, even in a simple cubism,
the geometrical surfaces of an object must be opened out in order to
give a complete representation of it… Everyone must agree that a chair,
from whichever side it is viewed, never ceased to have four legs, a seat
and back, and that if it is robbed of one of these elements, it is robbed
of an important part.”
By pulling 3-4 key ideas from this quote, please create your
own definition of cubism.
cylinders, rectangles, & spheres
PAUL CÉZANNE, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 19021904. Oil on canvas, 2'3 1/2" x 2'11 1/4"
“I paint forms as I think
them, not as I see them.”
Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907
Nonwestern, Africa, Koto
Reliquary Figure
Nonwestern, Africa, Picasso's
Grebo Mask
Picasso, Mother and Child, 1907
Analytic Cubism:
• subdued hues – monochrome browns
• dismissal of pictorial illusionism
• using shapes and line (formalism)
• Picasso and Braque
Braque, Fishing Boats, 1909
Picasso, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910
Braque, Bottle & Fishes, 1910-12
Synthetic Cubism:
• inclusion of collage/ objects
• papier colle – stuck paper
• “Not only did we try to displace reality;
reality was no longer in the object”
Picasso, Still Life w Chair Caning, 1911-12
Constructed paintings and
drawings with objects and shapes
COLLAGE!!
Picasso, The Muse, 1935
Picasso, Guernica, 1937