Analytical Cubism


The Meaning of Cubism

a) What was the subject matter of Cubism?

Cubists rejected such subject as remote and often incomprehensible and insisted instead that art should deal with the real everyday world: natural or man-made and with a common, everyday human experience. Thus, the aim is to celebrate the simple pleasures and satisfactions of the everyday life and the ordinary daily environment of the artists and his audience.

Cubism had the repertoire of basic motifs, established by the Impressionists and Post- Impressionism * notably simple figure subjects, landscape and townscape, and still life, but the dominant subject of Cubism is still-life. The source material of Cubist still-life seems to fall into three broad principal categories: the pleasures of the cafe drinking, smoking, cards, newspapers; the pleasures of the table, almost always represented by the fruit course; and, perhaps, most important of all, the pleasures of music. (the violin, the Spanish guitar, the mandolin, the clarinet.) These categories, it should be said, tend to overlap and interweave and, of course, Cubist still-life contains references to many other aspects of life.

b) Why is Cubism often described as "painting about painting"?

Cubist's painting was primarily concerned not with lifelike representation but with the depiction of forms from many angles at once. In Cubism this modernist obsession with form is so prominent as to become a major part of the subject matter of the art * on this level Cubism may be said to be painting about painting or, a kind of game with the idea of representing the three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional surface and with the established traditions of such representation.

c) Why do Cubist paintings also have the character of poetry?

The Cubist painting is presented by pattern of overlapping fragments * planes * amongst which appear hints, references and allusions to reality. These hints and allusions are often ambiguous or multiple-referential, or simply impossible to identity at all with any certainty. Since the normal spatial relationship is not observed, the elements of the picture may appear in strange and unexpected relation. Thus cubist art, has something of the character of poetry, presenting an image of the world that is meditative, haunting, lyrical, mysterious and sometimes obscure.

d) Define Cubism as an artistic style.

One of the most influential art movements (1907-1914) of the twentieth century, Cubism was developed by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1882-1973) and Georges Braque (French, 1882-1963). In Cubism the subject matter is broken up, analyzed, and reassembled in an abstracted form. There were five phases in the development of Cubism: Facet Cubism, Analytical Cubism, Hermetic, Collage and Synthetic Cubism. Much of the origination of Cubism came from interest in the works of Paul Cezanne (French, 1839-1906) and Georges Seurat (French, 1859-1991), and in African sculpture.

e) Why did the Cubists abandon Renaissance naturalism?

The cubists was simply used a new way to represent the three-dimensional reality on a two-dimensional surface. The old way, the naturalism of the Renaissance, depended in particular upon one fundamental assumption * that everything in the picture is seen from a single, fixed viewpoint. Cubism abandoned this rule.
The massive theoretical weakness of Renaissance naturalism * that it can only show one side of things, can be eliminated by the use of multiple viewpoints of Cubism.
Another reason for the Cubists' abandonment of Renaissance naturalism was that it was a method of painting which produced and illusion of reality. A philosophical dislike of illusionism is an absolutely central characteristic of modern art from its earliest beginnings.
The early years of this century in Europe were years of great restlessness and change of dramatic and far-reaching innovation and discovery in technology and science. Cubism maybe said to reflect in some way the new views of the nature of reality revealed by the discoveries of scientists. However, it should also be stressed hat there was never any direct relationship between the Cubism of Braque and Picasso and the contemporary world of science, technology and politics.

f) In what ways are Cubist pictures harmonious?

Harmony means bringing together all the parts of a composition into a satisfying relationship and a high degree of harmony in a pictorial composition can produce great beauty of visual effect.
Many Cubist works achieve a very high degree of harmony. Indeed harmoniousness is built into the whole concept of Cubist pictorial art as a structure of linked or overlapping planes into which everything in the picture * objects and background * is integrated.
Cubist pictures are characterized by an overall harmonious quality, there is no jumps from objects to background. The basic harmoniousness of Cubist painting is achieved by the very close range of low key colours used * greys, browns, beiges and soft greens.


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