Cubism

The cubism is an artistic movement which developed of 1906 with 1914 around Georges Braque, Francis Picabia and Picasso. After the First World War, the movement is blown, before dying out about the years 1920.

Origin of the word

The cubism term comes from a reflection of Henri Matisse, relayed by the art critic Louis Vauxcelles, which, to describe a table of Braque, spoke about " small cubes".

The cubism takes source in the writings and last works of Paul Cézanne. The historians will often repeat the sentence drawn from a letter of April 15th, 1904 of Cézanne with Emile Bernard: " Treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, the whole put in prospect, that is to say that each side of an object, of a plan, moves towards a point central." This sentence, even taken out of its context, is already in oneself a little light to justify the theories cubists. But the relationship of these theories with the searchs for Cézanne becomes frankly doubtful when one reads the continuation of the letter which the historians always omit: " the lines parallel in the horizon give the extent, that is to say a section of nature or, if you like better, of the spectacle that the Pater Omnipotens Aeterne Deus slack in front of our eyes. The lines perpendicular to this horizon give the depth. However, nature, for us men, is more in-depth than surfaces some, from where the need for introducing into our vibrations of light, represented by the reds and the yellows, a sufficient sum the bluish ones, to make feel the air." When one reads very simply this matter, without seeking midday with fourteen hour, one realizes that Cézanne does nothing but indicate one very traditional step to approach the painting of a table in general, and of a landscape in particular: the perpendiculars give the depth, horizontal the extent, any volume round (what is not the case of the cube) has a culminating point towards the eye of the spectator, and, for the colors, the reds and the yellows give the vibrations of light while the blue ones give the air. It is relatively very simple, and there is no doubt that all the great painters before Cézanne knew that, at least instinct. There is on behalf of Cézanne no revolutionary interpretation of the world, as one said too much, and it did not have undoubtedly this childish project all to reduce to tangled up cubes or geometrical figures. What would have thought Cézanne of the theories cubists? would have it can be says to the painters cubists what he said to Emile Bernard in 1904: " It must fear the literary man spirit, which so often makes the painter deviate from his true way - the concrete study of nature - to lose itself too a long time in speculations intangibles."

The Cubism wants also to be justified and be attached to Cézanne by the search of a solidity and a density in reaction to research of the luminous and atmospheric effects of the Impressionists who, at least in a certain number of landscapes, tend to drowning and éthérer volumes in flickers of colors. But there still, it is undoubtedly to go beyond what Cézanne preached.

It is thus probably on a misunderstanding that as from 1906 and the Demoiselles of Avignon (regarded generally as the first table cubist) Picasso and Braque will apply their theories, not only with the landscapes but also with dead natures and the human figure.

It is as from 1910, with what one will name the analytical cubism, that these two painters will affirm a rupture with the traditional vision already started for four years. They give up the unicity from point of view of the reason to introduce of them multiples under various angles, juxtaposed or tangled up in the same work. They are freed from the prospect to give a dominating importance to the plans in the bursting of volumes.

Influence of Apollinaire

Large admiror of Cézanne, to which he dreamed to devote a long study which was born never, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire was the defender of the painters cubists at the first days. It is him which inspired to them or which detected or, more probably, which imagined in the analysis of their works, with a certain lyricism, a metaphysical dimension.

In 1908, it writes the foreword of the catalog of an exposure in which it states the three virtues plastic , begun again in introduction of the Peintres cubists .

The ideology cubist is entirely contained in this book; it is thus sufficient to take note of it to have a complete idea of the goals of the cubism.

The essential idea of Apollinaire is the need for the destruction of the concept of creative God replaced by the concept that each man is God himself, insofar as it becomes aware of his divinity, and that consequently, men do not have any reason to dedicate a worship with the nature, which is not whereas a tiny, momentary and perishable aspect of the universe. The great concern of Apollinaire is to see, like it says it, " nature terrassée". He judges the worship of nature like the only obstacle with the possession of what he names the " pureté" , the only obstacle with the conquest of the absolute by humanity. To the terrestrial forms, he opposes " size of the forms métaphysiques" ; " in on this side eternity, he writes, dance the mortals forms of the love, and the name of nature summarizes their cursed discipline"

This form of religious or metaphysical revolution in the name of pictorial art, and leading in this one to a rupture with the respect of nature, rupture with old painting and of all times, deformation without limits and non-figuratism, was disputed. Leon Gard (1901-1979, painter and writer of art) written: " The difficulty of the position of Apollinaire is that the suppression of the worship of nature does not prevent this nature from existing, and does not prevent that we form part of it. The true obstacle so that we, creatures of nature, had the absolute, is thus not the worship of nature but nature itself. And if it is thought, with some appearance of reason, that nature, as large as it is, is not the absolute, it also should be thought that the creatures of nature can consider the absolute only through nature while going back to its créateur."

Four periods

Précubisme, or cubism cézannien, negro or geometrical (1907-1910). The step sticks to the representation in volume of the object, the manner of Cézanne or of the African masks; the traditional prospect is often abused. Relate to primarily Pablo Picasso (cf Réservoir in Horta ) 1909, and George Braque. Andre Derain and Fernand Leger mênent parallel research then.

analytical Cubism (1910-1912). The object is déconstruit, and all its facets are represented in fragments, without any regard for the prospect; this phase of research is characterized by a chromatism very little saturated (gray, brown, green, blue tern). On the other hand, the light occupies a very important place; it is distributed differently on each fragment. Relate to primarily Pablo Picasso, (cf the player of guitar , 1910) and Directs, which cooperates and competes of inventiveness for always pushing the step further. Their fabrics tend to abstract stylization.

synthetic Cubism (1912-1914). This period is characterized by the return of the color and the use of the technique of joining (papers, objects). The painter selects the most relevant facets of the déconstruit object (contrary to the second phase, where there is no selection). Elements of reality are reintroduced, in particular by the joining of papers or giving indications of matter to the object represented (false wood or oil-cloth). Cf Pablo Picasso, Guitar and bottle of Bottom , 1913. Direct and especially Juan Gris will give to this style a rigor and a traditional serenity.

Cubism orphic . The name is given by Guillaume Apollinaire in connection with the two principal representatives of this form of cubism: Robert Delaunay and his wife Sonia Delaunay. The color is detached from any form and allows creation, in their works, of coloured concentric circles, giving rate/rhythm and speed to the table.

Artists

Towards the abstraction

Cubism, as Guillaume Apollinaire in underlines it the Painters cubists. Esthetic meditations (1913), opened the way of the abstraction (Suprématisme, abstract Expressionnisme, Bauhaus) and of the Conceptual art, although the cubism did not produce the works completely stripped of bond with reality. In a more general way, all the important artists who will succeed in finding a style personal after the First World War, will have passed at one time or to another, by a phase cubist (Piet Mondrian, Marcel Duchamps, Kurt Schwitters, Russian and Italian artists, Salvador Dali…)

Running close

The cubism, which breaks up the objects, is close to two movements:
  • the Futurism, which breaks up the movement,
  • the orphism, which breaks up the light.

In Czechoslovakia

See also: Czechoslovakian Cubism

One of the countries where the cubism is particularly widespread is the Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovakian artists, for nationalist reasons, try to escape from the Sezessionsstil Viennese and the German Jugendstil and obstinately look at side of the artistic “Mecque” which is Paris at that time. If Alfons Mucha still forms part of the “old guard” of the Art nouveau, others like František Kupka, Josef Čapek, Antonín Procházka, Emil Fila, Toyen or Bohumil Kubišta with the predestined name adopts without waiting and with enthusiasm the concepts cubists.

Those then penetrate all the aspects of the daily life:

Rondocubism and triangular cubism

Freeing itself quickly from their Parisian model, the Portuguese artists invent a very particular cubism, E^3, where the “cube” as basic element of the déconstruction would be replaced by the “cylinder” and the triangular cubism where it is the “prism” or the “Tétraèdre” which plays the part of basic element.

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