The style encompassed the cubist emphasis on the picture plane with the surrealist interest in releasing unconscious imagery. The first major exhibition of modern art in America, held at New York City's 69th Infantry Regiment Armory from 17 February to 15 March 1913. Many of them began as newspaper illustrators and their art was also a chronicle of everyday urban activity. See collage . Such paintings usually featured colors soaked into the canvas, emphasizing their relationship on the surface of the image rather than in depth.
Color is used as the primary element in both creating composition and evoking mood.
This term also applies to the completed work, which usually adheres to the convention of the picture plane , in contrast to the more sculptural assemblage . Constructivists viewed art as a scientific activity, an exploration of line, color, surface, and construction, and sought to apply their ideas to political and social issues. Cubist artists shattered naturalistic forms and space, attempting to represent on a flat surface all aspects of what existed in three dimensions. Analytic cubism presented different views of an object simultaneously and stressed geometric forms and neutral tones. Synthetic cubism, a later stage, reintroduced color and elements of collage.