Cubism

Overview

Working closely together in Paris, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque abandoned the single fixed viewpoint that had governed European painting since the Renaissance. Drawing on Cézanne and on African and Iberian sculpture, they broke figures and objects into facets and showed them from several angles at once.

An early “analytic” phase in muted browns and grays gave way after 1912 to “synthetic” Cubism, which introduced collage: pasted newspaper, wallpaper and lettering. Cubism changed the direction of twentieth-century art and led directly to many forms of abstraction.

What defines it

• Multiple viewpoints combined in one image
• Forms fragmented into geometric planes
• Collage and pasted paper introduced into fine art

Works to know

• Les Demoiselles d’Avignon Pablo Picasso · 1907 · Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Violin and Candlestick Georges Braque · 1910 · San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
• Still Life with Chair Caning Pablo Picasso · 1912 · Musée Picasso, Paris
• Portrait of Pablo Picasso Juan Gris · 1912 · Art Institute of Chicago