Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century art movement, characterized by the reduction and fragmentation of natural forms into abstract, geometric structures usually a set of discrete planes. Pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Cubism is divided into two phases the first phase of cubism, known as Analytic Cubism, was both radical and influential as a short but highly significant art movement between 1908 and 1911 in France. In its second phase, Synthetic Cubism, the movement spread and remained vital until around 1919.
Picasso and Braque initiated the movement when they followed the advice of Paul Cézanne, who said artists should treat nature "in terms of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone. "To break with homogeneous form, Braque and Picasso's similar compositions are broken into planes with open edges, sliding into each other while denying all depth. Colour is reduced to a grey-tan cameo, applied uniformly in small brushstrokes creating vibrations of light. The interpenetration of the forms lends these paintings a previously unknown aspect of continuity and density. Withdrawing before the abstract and hermetic character of this new space, Braque and Picasso brought recognizable illusionist features back into their paintings. They used letters, fragments of words, musical notes, and then significant material elements: sand or sawdust which create relief, and tend to make the picture more physically an object.
Analytic Cubism is one of the two major phases of the artistic movement of Cubism and was developed between 1908 and 1912.Analytic cubists "analyzed" natural forms and reduced the forms into basic geometric parts on the two-dimensional picture plane. Colour was almost non-existent except for the use of a monochromatic scheme that often included grey, blue and ochre. Instead of an emphasis on colour, Analytic cubists focused on forms like the cylinder, sphere and the cone to represent the natural world. During this movement, the works produced by Picasso and Braque shared stylistic similarities.
Both painters Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque moved toward abstraction, leaving only enough signs of the real world to supply a tension between the reality outside the painting and the complicated meditations on visual language within the frame.
Synthetic Cubism was the second main phase of Cubism It was the first time that collage had been seen as a fine art work. Newspaper clippings were a common inclusion in this style of cubism, where physical pieces of newspaper, sheet music... etc. Picasso and Braque had a constant competition with each other, were including letters in their works may have been an extension of their game. Analytic cubism was an analysis of the subjects; synthetic cubism is more of pushing several objects together. Picasso, through this movement, was the first to use text in his artwork, and the use of mixed media, were he used more than one type of medium in the same piece. Unlike analytic cubism, synthetic cubism has fewer planar shifts, and less shading, creating flatter space. Cubism was a particularly varied art movement in its political affiliations, with some sections being broadly leftist or radical, and others strongly aligned with nationalist sentiment.
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso was an Andalusian-Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. As one of the most recognized figures in twentieth-century art, he is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles embodied in his work. He was born in the city of Malaga in Spain, Picasso showed passion and a skill for drawing from an early age, received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. He studied art in Madrid; Picasso made his first trip to Paris in 1900, which then was considered as the art capital of Europe. There, he met his first Parisian friend, the journalist and poet Max Jacob, who helped Picasso learn the language and its literature. Picasso had to burn much of his work to keep the small room warm, in times of severe poverty, cold, and desperation.
Picasso Political views he remained neutral during World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II, refusing to fight for any side or country. His art work is often categorized into periods, the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1905–1907), the African-influenced Period (1908–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919).
Picasso’s Blue Period (1901–1904) consists of paintings in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colours. This period’s starting point is uncertain; it may have begun in Spain in the spring of 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the year. Many paintings of gaunt mothers with children date from this period, he usually had a frequent subjects like prostitutes, beggars and drunks
Rose Period
The Rose Period (1904–1906) is characterized by a more cheery style with orange and pink colours, and featuring many circus people, acrobats and harlequins. The harlequin became a personal symbol for Picasso.
African-influenced Period was the period when Pablo Picasso painted in a style which was strongly influenced by African sculpture. This period, which followed his Blue Period and Rose Period, has also been called the Negro Period or Black Period. Picasso’s African-influenced Period (1907–1909) begins with the two figures on the right in his painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which were based on African art. Although the painting is seen as the first Cubist work, before beginning the Cubist phase of his painting, he spent several years exploring African art. Picasso's African influenced period was followed with the style known as Analytic Cubism, which had also developed from Les Mademoiselle Mignonne's. Picasso's interest was sparked by Henri Matisse who showed him a mask from the Dan region of Africa.
Cubism
Analytic cubism (1909–1912) is a style of painting Picasso developed along with Georges Braque using monochrome brownish and neutral colours. Both artists took apart objects and “analyzed” them in terms of their shapes. Picasso and Braque’s paintings at this time have many similarities. Synthetic cubism (1912–1919) was a further development of the genre, in which cut paper fragments—often wallpaper or portions of newspaper pages—were pasted into compositions, marking the first use of collage in fine art.
Classicism and surrealism
His work in this period was influence from his contact with the surrealists, who often used Minotaur(was a creature that was part man and part bull) as their symbol, and it appears in Picasso’s Guernica. Arguably Picasso’s most famous work is his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War — Guernica. This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war. Asked to explain its symbolism, Picasso said, “It isn’t up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them.”
Later work
In the 1950s, Picasso’s style changed once again, as he took to producing reinterpretations of the art of the great masters. He also based paintings on works by Goya, Poussin, Manet, Courbet and Delacroix. He was commissioned to make a maquette for a huge 50-foot high public sculpture to be built in Chicago, known usually as the Chicago Picasso. What the figure represents is not known; it could be a bird, a horse, a woman or a totally abstract shape. The sculpture, one of the most recognizable landmarks in downtown Chicago, was unveiled in 1967. Picasso refused to be paid $100,000 for it, donating it to the people of the city. Picasso’s final works were a mixture of styles, his means of expression in constant flux until the end of his life. Devoting his full energies to his work, Picasso became more daring, his works more colourful and expressive, and from 1968 through 1971 he produced a torrent of paintings and hundreds of copperplate etchings. At the time these works were dismissed by most as pornographic fantasies of an impotent old man or the slapdash works of an artist who was past his prime. Only later, after Picasso’s death, when the rest of the art world had moved on from abstract expressionism, did the critical community come to see that Picasso had already discovered neo-expressionism and was, as so often before, ahead of his time.
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