Cubism was a revolutionary movement that emerged at the end of the first decade of the 20th century and was most closely associated with Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. It characteristically involved depicting subjects from multiple viewpoints within the same picture, replacing Western art’s naturalist tendency with disjointed, fragmented and abstracted versions of reality.
In 1907, Picasso – under the influence of Cézanne and within a growing interest in non-Western art styles too – produced arguably the first great work of Cubism, Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon. This led to a collaboration with Braque that produced its most interesting results over the next decade or so. The critic Louis Vauxcelles is generally credited with coining the term cubism when he responded to Braque’s paintings at an exhibition in Paris in 1908 with the observation that he reduced his subjects to ‘geometric outlines, to cubes’.
Analytic cubism
The initial stage of Cubism began around 1907 and is known as Analytic Cubism. By abandoning the traditions of perspective in place since the Renaissance, its exponents explored new ways of interpreting space – often, for example, there was no clear delineation between foreground and background, and colour palettes were commonly muted. Many critics believe this was a response to how modernity – urbanization, industrialization, technological advancement – was altering perceptions of the world. As David Hockney noted: ‘Cubism was an attack on the perspective that had been known and used for 500 years. It was the first big, big change. It confused people: they said, “Things don’t look like that!”’
Picasso and Braque in turn inspired the ‘Salon Cubists’ (among them Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier and Jean Metzinger), who brought the philosophy to a wider public. From around 1912, the second iteration of the movement – Synthetic Cubism – came to the fore, with the use of non-traditional art materials (such as newspapers, sometimes reflecting an active engagement with current affairs) a striking characteristic.
Cubism was one of the most influential movements of the 20th century, inspiring other avant-garde schools and entering the mainstream in, for example, Art Deco stylings. ‘Cubism is not a reality you can take in your hand,’ Picasso would say. ‘It’s more like a perfume, in front of you, behind you, to the sides, the scent is everywhere but you don’t quite know where it comes from.’