Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912 | Kimbell Art Museum Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912 Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912 May 29, 2011 to August 21, 2011 Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912 united select paintings and nearly all of the prints created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque during these two exhilarating years of their artistic dialogue. “This small-scale exhibition examines a brief moment with huge implications for the history of art,” commented Eric M. Lee, director of the Kimbell Art Museum. “This show is the first to focus exclusively on this landmark period of intense productivity and adventure for Picasso and Braque.” This international loan exhibition was organized by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Kimbell Art Museum and had its debut in Fort Worth.

During the years 1910 through 1912, these two great masters invented a new style that took the basics of traditional European art—modeling in light and shade to suggest roundedness, perspective lines to suggest space, indeed the very idea of making a recognizable description of the real world—and toyed with them irreverently. “These are beautiful, enigmatic, playful works of art. They’re like conversations in the artist’s studio or favorite café, not to be hurried,” remarked Malcolm Warner, deputy director at the Kimbell Art Museum. “We hope our visitors will take the time to savor them.” Following up on hints they found in the work of Paul Cézanne, and brimming with youthful bravado, Picasso and Braque created pictorial puzzles, comprehensible to a point but full of false leads and contradictions. Viewers pick up a few clues—a figure, a pipe, a mustache, a bottle, a glass, a musical instrument, a newspaper, a playing card—and these start to suggest a reality in three dimensions. The impression is that of a fast, modern world, with glimpses of models, friends, and the paraphernalia of drinking and smoking.

But things never fully add up, either in detail or as a whole—and deliberately so. Teasingly elusive, the image is a construction of forms and signs that the artist has put together in a spirit of parody and play. The pleasure for the viewer is to let go of all normal expectations and enter into the game, which is an endlessly intriguing one. More than any avant-garde artists before them, Picasso and Braque called into question conventional ideas about art as the imitation of reality. They collaborated so closely and like-mindedly (“roped together like mountain climbers,” in Braque’s own phrase) that their works of this period are sometimes difficult to tell apart. Their radical experiment in picture-making, which came to be known as Analytic Cubism, has been as far-reaching in its implications for art as the theories of Einstein for science. This choice, intimately scaled exhibition, featuring 16 paintings and 20 etchings and drypoints, was conceived and organized by Eik Kahng, chief curator at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, in partnership with the Kimbell and Mr. Warner.

The Kimbell was a natural collaborator on the project since the Museum’s collection includes an outstanding example of the work of each artist from the Analytic Cubist period, Picasso’s Man with a Pipe and Braque’s Girl with a Cross, both painted in 1911. In the exhibition these appeared among paintings from a number of other distinguished collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Menil Collection and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Tate in London, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, and the Robert B. and Mercedes H. Eichholz Collection. The etchings and drypoints were selected from several sources, most notably the extraordinary holdings of Cubist prints in the Melamed Family Collection. Not surprisingly in light of its importance in the history of art, Cubism has been the subject of numerous museum exhibitions. Some of them have been dauntingly large, especially given the amount of time each of these highly complicated works demands of the viewer. The guiding principle of this exhibition was that less can be more.

It offered the kind of small, carefully calibrated selection that invites the viewer to spend time exploring each work in detail. The inclusion of a good number of etchings and drypoints ensured that printmaking emerged with a proper sense of its importance to Picasso and Braque at this moment in their careers. Other themes suggested by the exhibition and discussed in the accompanying catalogue include the role of format, especially the use of oval-shaped canvases. What part does this play in the Cubists’ pictorial game? How do the visual push and pull of the oval format differ from those of the rectangle or square? How did the artists intend their oval compositions to be framed? This last question is especially relevant to the Kimbell’s Picasso, an oval canvas that has been lined and framed as a rectangle. In an essay in the catalogue, Kimbell conservators Claire Barry and Bart Devolder present the discovery that this painting appears in an early photograph of the artist’s studio—as a work in progress, much different from its final form, but clearly on an oval stretcher. This, along with results of their research into the materials and techniques of the Cubists, was also presented in a special section of the exhibition.

For over a year, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art worked with California-based MegaVision to capture spectral images of select works in the exhibition. The quality of spectral imaging surpasses that of normal professional photography. Thanks to recent advances in the technology of LEDs (light-emitting diodes), RGB (red, green, and blue) filters have been removed from behind the lens and replaced with LED-produced RGB light, which is aimed directly onto the object that is being photographed. Beyond the visible spectrum, spectral imaging allows options for ultraviolet and infrared, which can reveal features invisible to the human eye. The elimination of the filters in the optical path allows for a higher-quality image, greater accuracy of color, and, especially important in the art world, a huge reduction of harmful light. The spectral imaging created by MegaVision was incorporated into interactive software that allowed visitors and online users to manipulate and study works with a level of detail and precision never before possible for museum audiences. Produced in partnership with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Kimbell Art Museum, this cutting-edge visual technology introduced new ways to look at and understand the processes, relationships, and stylistic developments of this important movement. Hand-held, touch-screen computers provided mobility and interactive media content to exhibition visitors.

For the first time in a museum setting, every visitor had the opportunity to sit in front of an actual painting by Picasso or Braque and independently zoom in on the smallest brush strokes and specks of color. This is just an example of the many explorations that this program made available to visitors. Join Today Cubism - the first abstract style of modern art Cubism Cubism - The First Style of Abstract Art PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973) 'Factory, Horta de Ebbo', 1909 (oil on canvas) Cubism was a truly revolutionary style of modern art developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques. It was the first style of abstract art which evolved at the beginning of the 20th century in response to a world that was changing with unprecedented speed. Cubism was an attempt by artists to revitalise the tired traditions of Western art which they believed had run their course. The Cubists challenged conventional forms of representation, such as perspective, which had been the rule since the Renaissance . Their aim was to develop a new way of seeing which reflected the modern age.

In the four decades from 1870-1910, western society witnessed more technological progress than in the previous four centuries. During this period, inventions such as photography, cinematography, sound recording, the telephone, the motor car and the airplane heralded the dawn of a new age. The problem for artists at this time was how to reflect the modernity of the era using the tired and trusted traditions that had served art for the last four centuries. Photography had begun to replace painting as the tool for documenting the age and for artists to sit illustrating cars, planes and images of the new technologies was not exactly rising to the challenge. Artists needed a more radical approach - a 'new way of seeing' that expanded the possibilities of art in the same way that technology was extending the boundaries of communication and travel. This new way of seeing was called Cubism - the first abstract style of modern art. Picasso and Braque developed their ideas on Cubism around 1907 in Paris and their starting point was a common interest in the later paintings of Paul Cézanne .

The Influence of Cézanne PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906) 'Bibemus Quarry', 1895 (oil on canvas) Cézanne was not primarily interested in creating an illusion of depth in his painting and he abandoned the tradition of perspective drawing. Perspective, which had been used since the Early Renaissance, was a geometric formula that solved the problem of how to draw three-dimensional objects on a two dimensional surface. Cézanne felt that the illusionism of perspective denied the fact that a painting is a flat two-dimensional object. He liked to flatten the space in his paintings to place more emphasis on their surface - to stress the difference between a painting and reality. He saw painting in more abstract terms as the construction and arrangement of colour on a two-dimensional surface. It was this flat abstract approach that appealed to the Cubists and their early paintings, such as Picasso's 'Factory at Horta de Ebbo' (1909) and Braque's 'Viaduct at L'Estaque' (1908,) took it to an extreme.

GEORGES BRAQUE (1882-1963) 'Viaduct at L'Estaque', 1908 (oil on canvas) The limitations of perspective were also seen as an obstacle to progress by the Cubists. The fact that a picture drawn in perspective could only work from one viewpoint restricted their options. As the image was drawn from a fixed position, the result was frozen, like a snapshot - but the Cubists wanted to make pictures that reached beyond the rigid geometry of perspective. They wanted to introduce the idea of 'relativity' - how the artist perceived and selected elements from the subject, fusing both their observations and memories into the one concentrated image. To do this the Cubists examined the way that we see. When you look at an object your eye scans it, stopping to register on a certain detail before moving on to the next point of interest and so on. You can also change your viewpoint in relation to the object allowing you to look at it from above, below or from the side.

Therefore, the Cubists proposed that your sight of an object is the sum of many different views and your memory of an object is not constructed from one angle, as in perspective, but from many angles selected by your sight and movement. Cubist painting, paradoxically abstract in form, was an attempt at a more realistic way of seeing. A typical Cubist painting depicts real people, places or objects, but not from a fixed viewpoint. Instead it will show you many parts of the subject at one time, viewed from different angles, and reconstructed into a composition of planes, forms and colours. The whole idea of space is reconfigured: the front, back and sides of the subject become interchangeable elements in the design of the work. JUAN GRIS (1887-1927) 'Violin and Glass', 1915 (oil on canvas) Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque conceived and developed Cubism but other artists also adopted the style. The Spanish artist Juan Gris , who is often referred to as the 'Third Musketeer of Cubism', was the best of these and he refined the Cubist vocabulary into his own instantly recognizable visual language.

Other notable artists associated with Cubism were Fernand Leger, Robert Delaunay, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Louis Marcoussis, Marie Laurencin and Roger de La Fresnaye. The Influence of African Art LEFT: Pablo Picasso, 'Head of a Woman', 1907 (oil on canvas) RIGHT: Dan Mask from West Africa The Cubists believed that the traditions of Western art had become exhausted and another remedy they applied to revitalize their work was to draw on the expressive energy of art from other cultures, especially African art . However, they were not interested in the true religious or social symbolism of these cultural objects, but valued them superficially for their expressive style. They viewed them as subversive elements that could be used to attack and subsequently refresh the tired tradition of Western art. This inspiration to cross-reference art from different cultures probably came from Paul Gauguin , the French post-impressionist artist, whose paintings and prints were influenced by the native culture of Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands where he spent his final years.

PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973) 'Still Life with Chair Caning', 1912 (oil on canvas) Around 1912, the styles of Picasso and Braque were becoming predictable. Their images had grown so similar that their paintings of this period are often difficult to tell apart. Their work was increasingly abstract and less recognizable as the subject of their titles. Cubism was running out of creative steam. In an attempt to revitalise the style and pull it back from total abstraction, Picasso began to glue printed images from the 'real world' onto the surface of his still lifes. His painting 'Still Life with Chair Caning’ was the first example of this 'collage' technique and it opened the door for himself and other artists to the second phase of the Cubist style: Synthetic Cubism. PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973) 'Still Life with mandolin and Guitar', 1924 (oil on canvas) Influenced by the introduction of bold and simple collage shapes, Synthetic Cubism moved away from the unified monochrome surfaces of Analytic Cubism to a more direct, colorful and decorative style.

Although synthetic cubist images appear more abstract in their use of simplified forms, the other elements of their composition are applied quite traditionally. Interchanging lines, colours, patterns and textures that switch from geometric to freehand, dark to light, positive to negative and plain to patterned, advance and recede in rhythms across the picture plain. 'Weeping Woman', 1937 (oil on canvas) Cubism was invented around 1907 in Paris by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Cubism was the first abstract style of modern art. A Cubist painting ignores the traditions of perspective drawing and shows you many views of a subject at one time. The Cubists introduced collage into painting. The Cubists were influenced by art from other cultures, particularly African masks. There are two distinct phases of the Cubist Style: Analytical Cubism (pre 1912) and Synthetic Cubism (post 1912) Cubism influenced many other styles of modern art including Orphism, Futurism, Vorticism, Suprematism, Constructivism and Expressionism .

Cubism | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art Works of Art (11) Essay Cubism was one of the most influential visual art styles of the early twentieth century. It was created by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973) and Georges Braque (French, 1882–1963) in Paris between 1907 and 1914. The French art critic Louis Vauxcelles coined the term Cubism after seeing the landscapes Braque had painted in 1908 at L’Estaque in emulation of Cézanne . Vauxcelles called the geometric forms in the highly abstracted works “cubes.” Other influences on early Cubism have been linked to Primitivism and non-Western sources. The stylization and distortion of Picasso’s ground-breaking Les Demoiselles d’Avignon ( Museum of Modern Art, New York ), painted in 1907, came from African art.

Picasso had first seen African art when, in May or June 1907, he visited the ethnographic museum in the Palais du Trocadéro in Paris. The Cubist painters rejected the inherited concept that art should copy nature, or that they should adopt the traditional techniques of perspective, modeling, and foreshortening. They wanted instead to emphasize the two-dimensionality of the canvas. So they reduced and fractured objects into geometric forms, and then realigned these within a shallow, relieflike space. They also used multiple or contrasting vantage points. In Cubist work up to 1910, the subject of a picture was usually discernible. Although figures and objects were dissected or “analyzed” into a multitude of small facets, these were then reassembled, after a fashion, to evoke those same figures or objects. During “high” Analytic Cubism (1910–12), also called “hermetic,” Picasso and Braque so abstracted their works that they were reduced to just a series of overlapping planes and facets mostly in near-monochromatic browns, grays, or blacks.

In their work from this period, Picasso and Braque frequently combined representational motifs with letters ( 1999.363.63 ; 1999.363.11 ). Their favorite motifs were still lifes with musical instruments, bottles, pitchers, glasses, newspapers, playing cards ( 1997.149.12 ), and the human face and figure. Landscapes were rare. During the winter of 1912–13, Picasso executed a great number of papiers collés ( 1999.363.64 ). With this new technique of pasting colored or printed pieces of paper in their compositions, Picasso and Braque swept away the last vestiges of three-dimensional space (illusionism) that still remained in their “high” Analytic work.

Whereas, in Analytic Cubism, the small facets of a dissected or “analyzed” object are reassembled to evoke that same object, in the shallow space of Synthetic Cubism—initiated by the papiers collés–large pieces of neutral or colored paper themselves allude to a particular object, either because they are often cut out in the desired shape or else sometimes bear a graphic element that clarifies the association. While Picasso and Braque are credited with creating this new visual language, it was adopted and further developed by many painters, including Fernand Léger ( 1999.363.35 ), Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Juan Gris ( 1996.403.14 ), Roger de la Fresnaye ( 1991.397 ), Marcel Duchamp , Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger ( 59.86 ), and even Diego Rivera ( 49.70.51 ). Though primarily associated with painting, Cubism also exerted a profound influence on twentieth-century sculpture and architecture. The major Cubist sculptors were Alexander Archipenko, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, and Jacques Lipchitz.

The liberating formal concepts initiated by Cubism also had far-reaching consequences for Dada and Surrealism , as well as for all artists pursuing abstraction in Germany, Holland, Italy, England, America, and Russia. Sabine Rewald Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art October 2004 Citation Rewald, Sabine. “Cubism.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (October 2004) Further Reading Cooper, Douglas, and Gary Tinterow. The Essential Cubism, 1907–1920: Braque, Picasso & Their Friends. Exhibition catalogue. London: Tate Gallery, 1983. Rubin, William, ed. Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1980. Additional Essays by Sabine Rewald Rewald, Sabine. “ Fauvism .” (October 2004) Rewald, Sabine.

“ Paul Klee (1879–1940) .” (October 2004) Related Cubism was invented by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque about - ART - 100 View Full Document Cubism was invented by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque about 1910. While the Fauve movement was based on the emotional expressionism found in Romanticism and works by Gauguin and Van Gogh, the Cubist style was developed along the lines of Neoclassicism, and the analytical and intellectual works by Paul Cezanne. Cubism was developed out of an approach toward the geometry that was produced from the simplification of natural forms. Picasso combined the pictorial methods used by Cezanne with formal elements derived from African, Oceanic, and Iberian sculpture. The term Cubism was coined by a hostile art critic that thought the predominance of geometric elements made the painting look like one of This preview has intentionally blurred sections. Sign up to view the full version. View Full Document cubes and thus the term is limiting to describe the analytical process that went into its style.

Another influence was the development of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity that helped to change the artists concepts of space and time. Cubism makes use of geometric planes and structure in stages of time. The flatness of the picture plane, the surface of the painting, became a formally significant quality. No longer was a painting an illusionary “window” of Renaissance and Academic tradition. The emphasis Cubism placed on geometry and plane association in space affected sculpture as well and changed the direction for understanding three-dimensional form, space, time, and motion. Every abstract art movement that has followed has somehow been influenced by discoveries expressed by Cubist works. There are two stages in the development of Cubism: Analytical Cubism Analysis by observation and intellectual interpretation of form into geometric terms. Multiple viewpoints Limited, often monochromatic use of color Shallow suggestion of space- flattened space and form. Synthetic Cubism A synthesis or bringing together of separate elements. Collage or attaching real objects to the canvas surface. Use of mixed media . Wider range of color used. Still life most often subject matter used. Techniques used in Synthetic Cubism create an entirely new approach for artists. The discoveries lead to a new vocabulary by which artists can express themselves .

Collage techniques bring real elements into the painting and make it something more than an optical experience. Cubism changed the direction for sculpture as well. Artists found the abstraction and geometric qualities lent new forms and possibilities to sculpture. Important Artists: Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 “Les Desmoiselles D’Avignon”, Self Portraits, “The Bottle of Suze”, “Guernica”, “Bull’s Head”(sculpture). Picasso was one of the most influential artists of the 20 th century and his impact on the course of art cannot be overstated. His approach used concepts found in African art and filtered them through a European context. He was a pioneer using found (real) objects in his paintings. He was a genius of art and could draw like the Masters before he was twenty years old. Georges Braque 1882-1963 “The Portuguese” This is the end of the preview. Sign up to access the rest of the document. TERM ART100%20study%20guide%20exam%201 Colorado State ART 100 Introduction to the Visual Arts Christensen, Inst.

CONCEPTS, TERMS, AND ADD ART100%20study%20guide%20exam%201 Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso | Masterworks Fine Art Masterworks Fine Art > Art World News > Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso In the spring of 1907, Georges Braque visited the studio of Pablo Picasso to view Picasso’s notorious work Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). Impressed with what he saw, Braque quickly befriended Picasso. In the years that followed (1907-1914), Picasso and Braque were essentially inseparable. As Braque recalled, “We were like mountain-climbers roped together.” The two artists worked so closely together that their works from this period are sometimes difficult to tell apart. Picasso and Braque forged a relationship that was part intimate friendship, part rivalry, and part two-man excursion into the unknown. The two artists were constantly in each other’s studio, scrutinizing each other’s work while challenging, motivating, and encouraging each other.

Picasso said, “Almost every evening, either I went to Braque’s studio or Braque came to mine. Each of us had to see what the other had done during the day.” Through this artistic collaboration, Picasso and Braque invented Cubism , a new style of painting that shattered traditional forms of artistic representation. Picasso and Braque’s relationship epitomizes the attraction of opposites. Braque’s father was a house painter and decorator who ensured that his son learned the necessary skills of his trade, while Picasso’s father was an academic painter who gave his son professional drawing lessons. Braque was a tall, reserved, systematic Frenchman whose artistic process was dictated by reason and balance. An incredibly private individual, Braque shunned the limelight and remained married to the same woman his entire life. In contrast, Picasso was a short, egotistical, outspoken, and unpredictable Spanishman who never stuck to one woman or painting style for a prolonged period of time. Hailed as the first celebrity artist, Picasso reveled in his very public status. However, despite their vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, Picasso and Braque complemented each other and contributed to the realization of a common vision with their joint creation of Cubism.

Pablo Picasso, Still Life with Chair Caning, 1912 Both Picasso and Braque called into question conventional ideas about art as the imitation of reality. They initially drew inspiration from two key sources: works by Paul Cezanne and African art. Paul Cezanne’s use of fragmented space and ambiguous forms and the geometric shapes and figures apparent in African art, particularly African masks, paved the way stylistically for their development of Cubism. Together, Picasso and Braque developed a distinct Cubist style. Picasso shifted his focus from narrative imagery to pictorial design, while Braque channeled his creativity towards his use of materials and textures and the manipulation of light and space. While their Cubist works are visually similar, Picasso and Braque often strove for different aesthetic effects – Braque desired his works to maintain a sense of balance and harmony while Picasso strived to disrupt this sense of balance and harmony. Picasso and Braque defined certain aspects of Cubism including distorted figures and forms and a monochromatic color palette of browns, greys, and blacks.

They simplified figures and objects into geometric components and planes that may or may not add up to the whole figure or object as it would appear in the natural world and simultaneously depicted different points of view on one plane, suggesting a flat, two dimensional surface. In addition, Picasso and Braque experimented with pasting colored and printed pieces of paper into their paintings. Picasso is credited with inventing “collage” with his 1912 work Still Life with Chair Caning, while Braque is credited for inventing “papier collé,” or pasted paper, with his 1912 work Fruit Dish, and Glass. The difference between collage and papier collé is extremely subtle – papier collé refers exclusively to the use of paper, while collage may incorporate other two-dimension (non-paper) components, suggesting that both Picasso and Braque co-created these techniques together. Braque’s role in Cubism tends to be underplayed, as Picasso is often considered the more commercially acclaimed artist. However, both artists contributed greatly to the Cubist movement. Picasso and Braque enjoyed a stint of productive and innovative collaboration until the fall of 1914, when Braque enlisted in the French Army early in WWI.

Following the war, the two artists went their separate ways and never re-ignited their friendship. Picasso and Braque occasionally made snide remarks about each other, yet they remained loyal to what they shared from 1907-1914; they never expressed what transpired between them. As Braque recalled, ”Picasso and I said things to one another that will never be said again … that no one will be able to understand.” This dedication and respect is one seldomly seen in the art world, and their silence on what transpired signifies that they felt their time together was sacred. William Rubin (1989), former director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, best sums up Picasso and Braque’s relationship when he states, “The collaboration between Picasso and Braque is unique in the history of art for its intensity, duration, and generative impact. No other modern style was the simultaneous invention of two artists in dialogue with each other.

In the years of their association, Picasso and Braque not only produced a number of exceptionally great works, they created a visual language that could and would be used by artists with widely divergent aesthetic, literary, and political concerns.” While the majority of Picasso and Braque’s works of Cubism are paintings, both artists also created stunning prints in the style of Cubism. Such Cubist prints are exceedingly rare and are often created after the image of renowned Cubist paintings such as Still Life with a Bottle of Rum (1911) by Picasso and Hommage a J.S. Bach (1911-12) by Braque . As both Picasso and Braque are credited with co-establishing and spearheading Cubism, these Cubists prints are iconic – they remain amongst their most collectible and treasured graphic works to date. REFERENCE: Brenson, M. (1989, September 22). Picasso and braque, brothers in cubism. The New York Times. Retrieved from Choi, E. (2004). Picasso and early cubism with Braque. Retrieved from ~djbromle/modern04/elizabethc/index.html Kimbell Art Museum.

(2011). Picasso and braque: The cubist experiment, 1910-1912. Retrieved from Rewald, S. (2014). Cubism.

Retrieved from Cubism | Tate Cubism Z Cubism was a revolutionary new approach to representing reality invented in around 1907/08 by artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque who aimed to bring different views of subjects (usually objects or figures) together in the same picture, resulting in paintings that appear fragmented and abstracted Bowl of Fruit, Violin and Bottle 1914 Oil on canvas unconfirmed: 920 x 730 mm frame: 1279 x 1093 x 63 mm Lent by the National Gallery 1997© Succession Picasso/DACS 2002 Bottle of Rum and Newspaper 1913-4 Oil and canvas support: 460 x 370 mm frame: 647 x 555 x 67 mm Presented by Gustav and Elly Kahnweiler 1974, accessioned 1994 Bottle and Fishes circa 1910-2 Oil on canvas Limestone object: 980 x 280 x 180 mm Purchased with assistance from the Friends of the Tate Gallery, Mrs Jack Steinberg and the Rayne

 Foundation 1982© The estate of Jacques Lipchitz, courtesy, Marlborough Gallery, New York Windows Open Simultaneously (First Part, Third Motif) 1912 Oil on canvas support: 457 x 375 mm frame: 651 x 565 x 67 mm Purchased 1967 Head of a Woman (Fernande) 1909 Plaster unconfirmed: 405 x 230 x 260 mm Lent from a private collection 1994© Succession Picasso/DACS 2002, courtesy Private Collection View the main page for this artwork Introduction to the cubist movement Cubism was one of the most influential styles of the twentieth century.

It is generally agreed to have begun around 1907 with Picasso ’s celebrated painting Demoiselles D’Avignon which included elements of cubist style. The name ‘cubism’ seems to have derived from a comment made by the critic Louis Vauxcelles who, on seeing some of Georges Braque ’s paintings exhibited in Paris in 1908, described them as reducing everything to ‘geometric outlines, to cubes’. Cubism opened up almost infinite new possibilities for the treatment of visual reality in art and was the starting point for many later abstract styles including constructivism and neo-plasticism . How does it work? By breaking objects and figures down into distinct areas or planes , the artists aimed to show different viewpoints at the same time and within the same space and so suggest their three dimensional form. In doing so they also emphasized the two-dimensional flatness of the canvas, instead of creating the illusion of depth. This marked a revolutionary break with the European tradition, which had dominated representation from the Renaissance onwards, of creating the illusion of real space from a fixed viewpoint using devices such as linear perspective . What inspired cubist style?

Cubism was partly influenced by the late work of Paul Cézanne in which he can be seen to be painting things from slightly different points of view. Pablo Picasso was also inspired by African tribal masks which are highly stylised, or non-naturalistic, but nevertheless present a vivid human image. ‘A head’, said Picasso, ‘is a matter of eyes, nose, mouth, which can be distributed in any way you like’. Types of cubism: Analytical vs. synthetic Cubism can be seen to have developed in two distinct phases: the initial and more austere analytical cubism , and later phase of cubism known as synthetic cubism . Georges Braque Listen to the curator of the 2012 Picasso and Modern British Art exhibition at Tate Britain, provide his persepective on the impact of Picasso’s work on British art. Cubism in context Watch curator Chris Stephens discussing what else was happening at the time in the art world around the time of cubism. Fun, exotic and very modern Cubist style was far-reaching in its influence. This Tate Etc.

article explores the impact cubism, particularly the work of Juan Gris , had on artist Patrick Caulfield ’s paintings – some fifty years after its emergence at the beginning of the twentieth century. Other perspectives In 2012 the English National Ballet were invited to Tate Britain to rehearse their new Ballet Russe season and to create new ballets inspired by Picasso’s work. Cubism in detail Cubism | Artsy Cubism About Cubism was the most important movement of the 20th century and marked the birth of abstract art. Invented and pursued by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris between 1907 and 1914 and inspired by the simplified landscapes of Paul Cézanne , Cubism took the revolutionary step of rejecting the 500-year-old idea that a painting was like a window, thus ruled by perspective. Instead, Picasso and Braque created more conceptual, subjective paintings that sought to represent the underlying structure of existence. The best-known Cubist works look like shattered glass in dim browns and yellows, and are composed of various sharp planes that combine to form people or objects.

Cubism took its name from an insult delivered by the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who commented that one of Braque’s paintings looked as if it were “full of little cubes.” After 1910, Picasso and Braque’s Cubism was quickly adopted by many other artists in Paris and beyond and ended up being the primary influence on most or all abstract art before the outbreak of World War II. Cubism — Works Georges Braque, French Painter PLEASE VISIT OUR ART BOUTIQUE TO PURCHASE BRAQUE PRINTS GEORGES BRAQUE Georges Braque {brahk}, b. May 13, 1882, d. Aug. 31, 1963, in collaboration with Pablo Picasso, was the founder of cubism. After receiving training at the local art school in Le Havre, Braque went to Paris in 1900. There he studied (1902-04) at the Académie Humbert and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the studio of Léon Bonnat. Braque's early works (1903-05) were executed in the mood of early impressionism.

Greatly influenced by André Derain, Henri Matisse, and Maurice de Vlaminck, Braque entered (1906 or 1907) his Fauve period, in which he used soft, undulating patterns and brilliant colors. Unlike the other Fauves (see Fauvism), however, he showed an interest in architectonic solidity of composition and an emphasis on strongly defined volumes rather than color and brushwork. "Still Life with Bottle, Fruit, and Napkins" by Georges Braque BUY BRAQUE PRINTS A crucial change in Braque's art came in the fall of 1907, when he rediscovered Paul Cezanne at the memorial exhibitions at the Salon d'Automne and the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery. At this time, he also met Picasso. In the late work of Cezanne, both Braque and Picasso saw a new geometrization of form and new spatial relationships that were to become the basis of cubism. Spurred by his close association with Picasso, whose Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1906-07) has been called "the first painting of the 20th century," Braque transformed his style radically.

Within three years, Picasso and Braque invented analytic cubism, a new, completely nonillusionistic and nonimitative method of depicting the visual world. Their concerns were so mutual and their association so intense that in many instances only experts can distinguish Braque's paintings of 1910-12 from those of Picasso. Violin and Pitcher (1910; Kunstmuseum, Basel) is one of the best examples of Braque's analytic cubism. The paintings of this period are all executed in muted greens, grays, ochers, and browns. The objects are fragmented, as though seen from multiple viewpoints. This multiplicity introduced the element of time into vision. These fragments, or cubes, are organized along a grid, thereby creating a compact pictorial structure. Braque's works from the period 1917-20 are derived compositionally from synthetic cubism, the second phase of cubism, which began about 1914. Much flatter and more variegated in color, they include brightly dotted decorative passages. Around 1930-31, Braque moved to the coast of Normandy in France.

As a result, he changed the subjects of his paintings; bathers, beach scenes, and seascapes were now his favorite themes. Stylistically, he became increasingly interested in ornamentation and patterned surfaces. During the late 1930s and early '40s, Braque was drawn to melancholy themes. From 1945, birds were a dominant subject. Braque's canvases done during the 1950s show a return to the brilliant colors of the Fauve period, as in the Louvre ceiling (1952-53) and the decoration for the villa at Saint Paul-de-Vence (1954). Active until the end of his life, Braque produced an oeuvre that includes sculpture, graphics, book illustration, and decorative art. Magdalena Dabrowski, Curatorial Assistant, Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Source: The Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, Release #9.01, ©1997.

Bibliography: Raymond Cogniat, Georges Braque (1980); Douglas Cooper, Braque: The Great Years (1973); John Elderfield, The "Wild Beasts": Fauvism and Its Affinities (1976); Jean Leymarie, Braque (1961, repr. 1988); Edwin Mullins, The Art of Georges Braque (1968); William Rubin, Picasso and Braque (1990); Karen Wilkin, Georges Braque (1991). Images: "Still Life with Bottle, Fruit, and Napkins" (Private Collection/Bridgeman Art Library/Copyright 1995 Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York/ADAGP, Paris) Copyrights Notice and Disclaimer: Images of artists' works displayed throughout this site have been obtained from numerous sources, including digital libraries at educational institutions, educational software, and Mark Harden's Artchive . Credit is attributed when known. Some works are considered to be in the public domain, based on current U.S. and international copyright acts.

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Question: What school of art was invented by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque?
Answer: Cubism