Cubism
Cubism was developed between 1908 and 1912 in a collaboration between Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. The movement itself was not long-lived or widespread, but it began an immense creative explosion which resonated through all of 20th century art. The key concept underlying Cubism is that the essence of an object can only be captured by showing it from multiple points of view simultaneously. Cubism had run its course by the end of World War I, but among the movements directly influenced by it were Orphism, Precisionism, Futurism, Purism, Constructivism, and, to some degree, Expressionism.
Candlestick and Playing Cards on a Table - Georges Braque
This still life presents one of the earliest instances of Braque's choice of an oval format. Both Braque and Picasso would make frequent use of the oval format. In rectangular Analytic Cubist paintings, planes and facets of forms concentrate in the center of a composition, and the corners remain relatively empty.
Citation: "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Cubism. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. .
Still Life with a Pair of Banderillas - Georges Braque
Picasso and Braque collaborated with each other on their own paintings and often did not include their signatures, making it difficult to tell the two artists' works apart. The banderillas of the title, which cross each other diagonally and horizontally, are the most recognizable objects in the picture. During the bullfight, these dartlike, steel-barbed, wooden sticks decorated with paper are inserted into a specific muscle of the bull's neck by the matador's assistants, the banderilleros, to injure and weaken the animal.
Citation: "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Cubism. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. .
Artillery - Roger de la Fresnaye
In an era of militarism and nationalism, Fresnaye constructed this piece three years before the outbreak of the first world war, demonstrating the artist's ever greater emphasis on the solid geometry that underlies all forms in nature.
Citation: "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Cubism. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. .
Violin and Playing Cards - Juan Gris
The violin is indicated by different shaded passages of wood-graining, as also by the instrument's purple, green, and black "shadows." Black, sky blue, and purple angular planes enrich the composition, which is set against a deep rust-red diamond-patterned background emulating the wallpaper.
Citation: "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Cubism. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
Table on a Café Terrace - Diego Rivera
This painting is an excellent example of Rivera's fully developed Cubist idiom, which he began to practice in Paris early in 1914 and continued to explore until 1917. Yet another still-life, this painting is one of the three most important works the artist executed in 1915, and one of three paintings acquired by the famous photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz.
Citation: "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Cubism. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
Table by a Window - Jean Metzinger
This work depicts an arrangement of objects—a vase with flowers, a glass and an absinthe spoon, the journal L'Heure, and a playing card—placed on a table next to a window in the artist's studio in Meudon near Paris.
Citation: "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Cubism. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
Still Life with a Bottle of Rum - Pablo Picasso
In the upper center of the picture are what seem to be the neck and opening of a bottle. Some spidery black lines to the left of it might denote sheet music, and the round shape lower down, the base of a glass. In the center, at the far right, is the pointed spout of a porrón, or a Spanish wine bottle.
Citation: "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Cubism. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
The Bargeman - Fernand Léger
This painting shows a boat set against a background dominated by the facades of houses. With colorful and overlapping disks, cylinders, cones, and diagonals, Léger presents a syncopated, abstract equivalent of the visual impressions of a man traveling along the Seine through Paris. All that can be seen of the bargeman, of course, are his tube-like arms in the upper part of the painting.
Citation: "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Cubism. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
Man with a Hat and a Violin - Pablo Picasso
This work belongs to a group of about seventeen other papiers collés by Picasso composed solely from newspaper articles. Picasso arranged cuttings from a 1912 newspaper onto a sort of scaffolding of straight and slightly curved charcoal lines. The various texts refer to the Balkan Wars, to the unrest of miners in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments, to critical issues debated in Parliament and in the Chambers, and to local announcements and advertisements.
Citations: "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Cubism. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015
Bottle and Wine Glass on a Table - Pablo Picasso
These still-life objects featured are outlined without any pretense at three-dimensional form, and depicted from various angles so that head-on and aerial views are presented simultaneously. The article's headline, which reads "M. Millerand, Ministre de la guerre, fletrit l'antimilitarisme" (Mr. Millerand, Minister of War, denounces antimilitarism"), seems to indicate Picasso's awareness of the gathering tensions leading to World War I.
Citation: "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Cubism. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015
Citations:
"Cubism | Art." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/145744/Cubism>.
"Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Cubism. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. <http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cube/hd_cube.htm>.
"Cubism | Art." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/145744/Cubism>.
"Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Cubism. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. <http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cube/hd_cube.htm>.