CUBIST ART

1907 - 1924

From a path first blazed by Cezanne, Gauguin, Kandinsky and Klee, a new trail emerges as geometric forms are broken apart and reassembled in unexpected ways to depict objects from many different viewpoints simultaneously.

When Cezanne and Gauguin first brought geometric shapes to the forefront, a crack developed in the boundaries of art. Kandinsky and Klee widened the crack by often making form the subject of their work. Now, the Cubists kicked down the door and knocked down the final walls with their explorations of subjects from many angles at the same time. Following the cues of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, the Cubists eliminated perspective—the tool artists had used to order space since the Renaissance. They tilted planes and then pierced them with other objects coming into the frame from odd angles. In doing so, they redefined the idea of space in art. 

If this sounds complex, think of Cubists as omelet-makers; they weren’t afraid to scramble the eggs and reassemble the parts in search of a tastier meal. This was the point where art loosened its tie to reality even further and became abstract.

Oddly, there are two strong Cubist influences that were intellectual opposites. There were the primitive African masks that fascinated Picasso, and Albert Einstein’s sophisticated “Relativity of Simultaneity” theory, where two events occur at the same time. The result was primitive shapes that appeared to be seen from different angles in one work. The mash-up of these two influences gave Cubism a raw primitive quality while at the same appearing uniquely futuristic.

There was a second strain of Cubism, called Synthetic Cubism led by Fernand Leger and Juan Gris, who added the idea of collage to their work by attaching three-dimensional objects to their canvases. This gave the surface an even more chaotic appearance. Synthetic Cubism ended up having a significant influence on the Abstract Expressionists, especially Willem De Kooning.