Cubism
Pablo Picasso unveiled a painting called Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907 that would become the starting point for Cubism. This work marked a violent overturning of established conventions and birthed a new pictorial idiom. The canvas measured 243.8 by 233.7 centimeters and depicted five nude female figures with faces inspired by Iberian sculpture and African tribal masks. Critics later described this piece as proto-Cubist, though it lacked the full detachment characteristic of mature Cubism. Georges Braque followed suit shortly after creating landscapes at L'Estaque in 1908. These paintings reduced houses and trees to geometric schemas resembling cubes. Louis Vauxcelles, a critic writing for Gil Blas newspaper, mocked these works as cubic oddities in November 1908. He reported that Henri Matisse had told him Braque was sending in little cubes to an exhibition. The motif of the viaduct at l'Estaque inspired three specific paintings by Braque that simplified form and deconstructed perspective. Gertrude Stein referred to landscapes made by Picasso in 1909, such as Reservoir at Horta de Ebro, as the first true Cubist paintings. A retrospective of Paul Cézanne's paintings held in 1904 displayed current works at the 1905 and 1906 Salons before two commemorative retrospectives occurred after his death in 1907.
The movement evolved from Analytic Cubism between 1910 and 1912 into Synthetic Cubism running from about 1912 to 1914. Juan Gris coined the phrase Analytic Cubism retrospectively to describe this radical phase. Artists like Picasso and Braque worked in relative privacy under the support of dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler who guaranteed them annual income. They sold only to a small circle of connoisseurs while Picasso worked in Montmartre until 1912. In May 1912 Picasso created Still life With Chair Caning which is credited as the first Cubist collage. This work combined freely brushed oil paint with commercially printed oilcloth on canvas. Braque preceded Picasso in creating Cubist cardboard sculptures and papiers collés using newspaper, table cloth, wallpaper and sheet music. Synthetic Cubism featured simpler shapes and brighter colors alongside experiments in texture and pattern. The phase remained vital until around 1919 when Surrealism gained popularity. A significant modification between 1914 and 1916 signaled Crystal Cubism with large overlapping geometric planes and flat surface activity. Maurice Raynal referred to this style as crystal Cubism due to its clarity and sense of order. Léonce Rosenberg exhibited artists stranded by Kahnweiler's exile including Laurens, Lipchitz, Metzinger, Gleizes, Csaky, Herbin and Severini at his Galerie de l'Effort Moderne in Paris during 1918.
The first organized group exhibition by Cubists took place at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris during spring 1911 in a room called Salle 41. Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier showed works there while no pieces by Picasso or Braque were included. Louis Vauxcelles reviewed the 26th Salon des Indépendants in 1910 calling Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, Léger and Le Fauconnier ignorant geometers reducing the human body to pallid cubes. The subsequent 1912 Salon des Indépendants located in Paris ran from March 20 to May 16 and featured Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 which caused scandal even among Cubists. The hanging committee rejected the work despite it being shown later at the Salon de la Section d'Or in October 1912. At the 1912 Salon d'Automne an architectural installation known as Maison Cubiste created public anger regarding government use of buildings like the Grand Palais. Politician Jean Pierre Philippe Lampué made front page news with his indignation on the 5th of October 1912. The controversy spread to the Municipal Council of Paris leading to debate in the Chambre des Députés about using public funds for such art. Socialist deputy Marcel Sembat defended the Cubists during parliamentary proceedings. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City introduced Cubism to American audiences who were accustomed to realistic art. Jacques Villon exhibited seven large drypoints while Marcel Duchamp shocked viewers with Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 dated 1912.
Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes wrote Du Cubisme published by Eugène Figuière in 1912 to clarify their aims as artists. This text became the first theoretical treatise on Cubism and remains the clearest explanation available today. Guillaume Apollinaire accepted the term Cubism on behalf of a group invited to exhibit at Brussels Indépendants in 1911. The book reflected discussions by artists meeting in Puteaux and Courbevoie including Picabia and the Duchamp brothers. Henri Bergson's concept of duration influenced their thinking about observing subjects from different points simultaneously. They proposed that life is subjectively experienced as a continuum where past flows into present and present merges into future. The Salon Cubists used faceted treatment of solid space and multiple viewpoints to convey physical and psychological fluidity of consciousness. One major innovation was simultaneity drawing on theories by Henri Poincaré, Ernst Mach, Charles Henry, Maurice Princet and Henri Bergson. Linear perspective developed during Renaissance was vacated in favor of selecting successive viewpoints as if viewed from numerous angles. Les Peintres Cubistes appeared in 1913 as a collection of reflections and commentaries by Guillaume Apollinaire. Pierre Reverdy, Maurice Raynal and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler produced coherent bodies of theoretical writing between 1917 and 1924.
Cubist architecture flourished primarily in Bohemia especially within its capital city Prague between 1910 and 1914. Czech architects were the first and only ones to design original Cubist buildings using shapes derived from pyramids cubes and prisms. Josef Gočár built the House of the Black Madonna in Old Town Prague in 1912 alongside the Grand Café Orient which remains the only Cubist café in existence today. Vlastislav Hofman constructed entrance pavilions for Dáblice Cemetery between 1912 and 1914 while Emil Králíček designed a preserved Cubist streetlamp near Wenceslas Square in 1912. The grilles and other architectural ornaments attained three-dimensional forms with hexagonal windows created as new types of openings. Facades were sculpted with protruding crystal-like units reminiscent of diamond cuts or cavernous late Gothic structures. Pavel Janák, Josef Chochol and others worked mostly in Prague but also in other Bohemian towns. After World War I Rondo-Cubism developed fusing Cubist principles with round shapes. The leading architects expressed requirements of dynamism surmounting matter through creative ideas evoking feelings of expressive plasticity.
Cubism extended its reach into literature where Gertrude Stein employed repetition and repetitive phrases as building blocks in passages and whole chapters. Her novel The Making of Americans ran from 1906 to 1908 utilizing this technique extensively. William Faulkner's 1930 novel As I Lay Dying features narratives of fifteen characters producing a single cohesive body when taken together. Poets Guillaume Apollinaire Blaise Cendrars Jean Cocteau Max Jacob André Salmon and Pierre Reverdy became associated with the movement. Ballet received cubist sets and costumes designed by Picasso in 1917 for Sergei Diaghilev's Parade which preceded six more ballets he influenced. Braque followed suit with four ballets commencing in 1924 including Les Fâcheaux while Juan Gris designed sets for Diaghilev's Ballet Russes. Commercial graphic design saw popularization through poster designers A.M. Cassandre and Edward McKnight Kauffer. Paul Poiret and Callot Soeurs brought overlapping layers and flat planes obscuring body volumes into fashion design. Cubist construction was influential as any pictorial innovation serving as stimulus behind proto-Constructivist work by Naum Gabo and Vladimir Tatlin.
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Common questions
When did Pablo Picasso unveil the painting that started Cubism?
Pablo Picasso unveiled the painting called Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907. This work marked a violent overturning of established conventions and birthed a new pictorial idiom known as Cubism.
Who coined the phrase Analytic Cubism and when did it run?
Juan Gris coined the phrase Analytic Cubism retrospectively to describe this radical phase between 1910 and 1912. Artists like Picasso and Braque worked in relative privacy under the support of dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler during this period.
Where did the first organized group exhibition by Cubists take place?
The first organized group exhibition by Cubists took place at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris during spring 1911. Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier showed works there while no pieces by Picasso or Braque were included.
Which city was home to the only existing Cubist café today?
Cubist architecture flourished primarily in Bohemia especially within its capital city Prague between 1910 and 1914. Josef Gočár built the Grand Café Orient which remains the only Cubist café in existence today alongside the House of the Black Madonna.
What theoretical treatise on Cubism was published in 1912?
Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes wrote Du Cubisme published by Eugène Figuière in 1912 to clarify their aims as artists. This text became the first theoretical treatise on Cubism and remains the clearest explanation available today.