Cubism is not really a school or movement like, say, Fauvism; it is more a style. Cubism is generally said to have been inaugurated by Picasso's painting "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" in 1907, but in fact it was a concept produced of... [more]
Cubism is not really a school or movement like, say, Fauvism; it is more a style. Cubism is generally said to have been inaugurated by Picasso's painting "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" in 1907, but in fact it was a concept produced of Picasso's collaboration with Georges Braque. Rather than replicating real perspective in the two dimensions of the canvas, Cubism multiplies perspectives and depths. Summoning the gestures of African and Oceanic masks, Cubist objects are broken down into different shapes that stand toward each other at odd angles and unexpected postures. In a certain sense, Cubism is about bringing the many surfaces of an object to the fore: objects do not recede into the depths, instead they reveal their various sides simultaneously. This sense of splaying the object comes to a head in Analytic Cubism, where objects are fragmented, and every surface is revealed. But this fragmentation gave way to a flat- or plane-oriented Cubism, called Synthetic Cubism. Here, the artist no longer uses multiplied shapes of varied depths but turns to collage in order to create a sense of perspective and depth. In a certain sense, Cubism is really about the revelation of the surface; in Synthetic Cubism's flat renderings, we perhaps see the ultimate triumph of the surface. [show less]