Art History
Tutors: Emelie Sitzia and Morgan Thomas
Lecture 7 - Picasso, Modernity & Cubism
Braque - Houses at L’Estaque - 1908
Described as “full of little cubes” by Louis Vauxcelles, the same critic who gave
Fauvism its name, this picture shows some of the “essential vocabulary” of Cubism.
In 1909 Braque joined Picasso’s “effort” and it became relatively mainstream for the
next 50 years.
The aim of Cubism was to break the pictorial space, showing multiple perspectives
at once. Cubists wanted to offer images that represented all 3 dimensions of the
world on a 2d plane – and even show a 4th dimension: Time.
An objective of Cubism was to lay a “base” for a totally objective form of painting,
where the artist didn’t matter. Indeed, if you compare Braque to Picasso, you would
be hard pressed to tell many of their works apart.
Like absolutely everything a little bit different, this was disturbing to the public at
the time. Bloody plebians.
Pablo Picasso
Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain. His father was an artist, and a teacher of Fine
Arts.
In 1900 Picasso went to Paris, visiting the Louvre, post-impressionist exhibitions,
etc. He took it all in.
Picasso – Le Moulin de la Galette – 1900
Renoir – Le Moulin de la Galette – 1876
Picasso’s early style was very dark and gritty, as evidenced by this comparison of
paintings by both Picasso and Renoir.
Picasso also had a “blue period” between 1901 and 1904, where his paintings took
on a monochromatic blue aspect. He also had a “Rose Period” and a classical
phase.
In 1904 he moved to Montmartre, staying there until 1909. During this time he
befriended many artists and poets.
Portrait of Gertrude Stein - 1906
It took 92 sessions to paint! Picasso struggled with this painting. In the end he drew
the face from memory and stylized it.
The face looked like a mask because of this.
Gertrude Stein was a big supporter and patron of early 20th century artists, a lot of
the innovation which happened around then happened because the Steins were
financing it.
A room in the apartment of Leo and Gertrude Stein - 1907
Picasso - Two Nudes - 1906
In 1906 Picasso began working on the nude figure. He transferred his “mask” idea
to “Two Nudes”, and also referenced primitive art in his style. Also, he neutralized
and simplified the female form, much like Matisse and Cezanne.
Picasso hasn’t yet abandoned perspective, the picture plane is still relatively
apparent and there’s still depth and volume.
Picasso - Les demoiselles d’ Avignon (study) - 1907
Picasso made many studies of this particular image. In this one he was working with
just area of colours, and very strong lines that are defining the people. He’s also
using his masks.
This study is more “primitive art” than the previous version. He also deformed the
anatomy significantly.
Picasso - Les Demoiselles d’Avignon - 1907
It’s the reception of a brothel!
He has a little still life in the foreground, a “Vanitas.” Vanitas imply that everything
will rot, everything will disappear.
Picasso says about it “If we give spirit a form, we become independent, free of
them.” Who knows what that meant, dude’s a weirdo.
Construction of this image
It has been simplified, so it’s really a flat space.
Based mostly on horizontal lines, broken with a couple of diagonals – just enough to
give it a sense of depth and movement without creating too much picture space.
He’s breaking the spaces and human body into geometrical forms – similar to
Braque, and even to Cezanne’s exploration.
Woman With a Fan -–1908
He’s going for a stiff, frontal composition that’s very geometrical.
Georges Braque
In 1904, Braque met Dufy, a Fauvist painter whom Braque worked closely with.
Braque set up a studio in Paris, where he studied the old masters, (Vincent van
Gogh, Seurat, and more traditional artists as well) and Egyptian art in particular.
Landscape, la Ciotat - 1907
The Fauvist influences are extremely apparent in this painting. Braque began to
move away from this style, however, to something a little more geometrical.
Grand Nu – 1908 (Large Nude)
Braque collaborated with Picasso from 1909 until 1914, when WW1 broke out and
Braque enlisted in the French army. He said of their relationship that they were “like
two mountain climbers roped together.”
Picasso - Woman’s Head - 1909
This is one of Picasso’s forays into sculpture. He tried to show “all angles” at the
same time, one of the cubist tenets, but sculpture inherently does this! So this is
definitely not as successful as his paintings.
Picasso – Girl With Mandolin - 1910
There are two types of Cubism. Analytic cubism, derived from the original aim of
cubism to paint objectively and analytically, and synthetic cubism, which focuses
more on pictorial values than the subject. “Girl With Mandolin” is an example of
Analytic Cubism.
Picasso’s Voilliard Portrait
Another Analytic painting – everything in it has been done with objective purpose
and meaning.
Braque - The Portuguese - 1911
Less analytic, more synthetic. The Cubism here is more a synthesis of the overall
space than an analysis. With Synthetic Cubism it’s generally harder, if not impossible
to make out the original subject. You can’t see the Portugese in this painting, while
you can see the girl in Picasso’s Girl with Mandolin.
Letters and numbers have been used here simply for their pictorial values, rather
than any objective purpose.
Picasso - Accordonist - 1911
Synthetic. Can’t see the subject at all.
Braque - The Fruit Dish - 1912
Braque and Picasso both did some work in a collaged style. The Fruit Dish has little
bits added in just because they look good, rather than any meaning – a tenet of
Synthetic cubism.
The titles are far more important with abstract paintings like this. Because of the
title, we are drawn to the fruit at the top of the painting, but without the title, we’d
be naturally more inclined to look at the letters and various shapes first.
Picasso - Man with a Hat - 1912
More collage-y stuff.
Cubist Sculpture
Archipenko
This was a Russian bloke, who moved to Paris in 1908 – right in the middle of the
cubist emergence.
Archipenko – Medrano II – 1913-14
Archipenko moved to the US around 1923 and went back to traditional types of
sculpture after that.
Raymond Duchamp-Villon - Large horse - 1914
Duchamp-Villon went straight from the traditional style, such as Redon, to Cubism,
completely skipping the “Matisse” phase.
He focused more on the horse and its interaction with space than on showing all the
different angles of the horse at once, so it’s a lot more successful than some of
Picasso’s sculptures.
Lipchitz - Bather - 1917
Lipchitz arrived in Paris in 1909, and in 1913 he started with “abstract
simplification,” the results of which can be seen in “Bather.” Like Archipenko, he left
for the US, this time in 1941, and changed his style completely.
The Spread of Cubism
As Cubism spread, many artists had their own take on the concept.
Juan Gris - Portrait of Picasso - 1912
Juan Gris looked at cubism and he tried to add to it by way of Mathematics. Most
of his composition is based on maths – look at the top right corner of the picture
and note how the diagonal bits have equal amounts of space, yet distributed
differently.
Metzinger - Cubist Landscape - 1911
Metzinger further explored cubism – this painting shows elements of Expressionism
in some ways because it could be perceived as “dreamlike”, or even “nightmarelike.” It’s a very moody painting. The twisted perspective on the outer rim creates a
vortex of sorts.
Unlike many other cubists, Metzinger has used a varied palette. A lot of the other
cubists generally worked with a brownish, uniform set of colours.
Leger - Nudes in the forest - 1909
Instead of trying to represent all the different angles, Leger is just transforming the
nudes into an assemblage of cylinders and squares, etc. He is adopting the “style”
of Cubism, but not the philosophy behind it.
A lot of his work is about dehumanization in society, shown by reducing people to
mere shapes. Leger’s work draws more from Cezanne’s work than it does from the
cubist movement.
Le Corbusier - Nature Morte au Siphon - 1921
Le Corbusier started off doing cubist works in the 20s, before moving onto
architecture which is what he’s really known for.
Le Corbusier was on a quest for “purism,” he wanted to start a more pure trend of
cubism, without all of the illustrative ornateness common to the movement at the
time.
Delaunay – The Eiffel Tower – 1910
Delaunay – Window on the City – 1914
Much of Delaunay’s work is often referred to as Orphism. Orphism “gives you a
picture of a dream” that the viewer must deconstruct for themselves.
He took this dreamlike concept of colour, and combined it with warped spaces,
geometrical forms inspired by Cezanne, etc.
His work got gradually more abstract as time went on – comparing the two above
images, “The Eiffel Tower” has a clear subject, whereas “Window on the City” is
more of a “kaleidoscope” perspective. Big change for only 4 years.
Simultaneous Contrasts - Sun and Moon 1913
And here, Delaunay completely abandoned any kind of object, devoting the
painting to nothing but colour and shape.
Marcel Duchamp - Nude Descending a Staircase, no. 2 – 1912
Duchamp based himself on Cezanne’s geometrical style, and impressionism to start
with, and he later moved onto cubism. He was, however, rejected by other Cubists
because they thought that the subjects of his paintings were too literal!