It is based on periods, movements and movements in the art world. As the trends that were popular in one period were criticized by the artists who came in the next period, other trends emerge and this process continues. We see the most important example of this situation in the cubism movement. Some young painters who criticized the Impressionism movement, which was popular at that time, created the cubism movement by looking at art from a different perspective.
We see the most popular examples of the cubism movement in the works depicted by Picasso, but he is not the only representative of this movement. Cubism influenced many painters when it first emerged, and this effect was also reflected in the works of that period. One of the prominent points of the movement is the handling of nature with geometric shapes. Let’s take a closer look at what Cubism is, what its features are, and see some examples from artists.
Let’s first make a basic definition; What is cubism?
Cubism, which emerged in France in the first years of the 20th century before the First World War, was formed as a revolutionary step against the understanding of art of the period. The most striking feature of cubism, which emerged in the art of painting based in Paris, is that it reflects existing subjects, events and nature through geometric shapes.
The main point of the Cubists is reality, but they approach the known reality from a different angle. For example, in a cubic work, you may encounter an object that you have seen many times before, but the interesting thing is that you see this object from an angle you have never looked at before. This is exactly why geometric shapes are used.
What does cubism stand for?
In the impressionism movement popular in the 1900s, artists reflected the temporary effects of light in their works. There were some young painters who were against this movement that developed in and around Henri Matisse. According to the cubist painters who criticized these paintings, which they described as multicolored, it was necessary to portray the outside world not only with its visible face but also with its invisible face.
Perhaps the biggest difference of Cubism is that it chose to use the power of the mind instead of the sense of sight, which is essential in Impressionism. Paul Cézanne is the most important pioneer of this idea. These names, who were influenced by many different ideas and eventually created the cubism movement, said that their movement was not an imitation but rather a kind of design art.
At the beginning of the features of cubism is the use of geometric shapes:
This movement was not named cubism by themselves. Art critic Louis Vauxcelles saw a work by Georges Braque one day, described it as small cubes, and that’s how the name cubism became the name of the movement. The early works of Georges Braque and Picasso have similarly intertwined narratives. Their main goal was to place three-dimensional shapes on a two-dimensional floor.
This is exactly why they placed geometric shapes on the canvas one by one and on top of each other. Because according to the cubists, when a person looks at an object, he sees only a part of it, not the whole. This is exactly why there are versions of the same artist drawing the same object from different perspectives. These drawings, which sometimes seem meaningless, actually gain meaning depending on how one looks at the object.
The works took on an increasingly abstract dimension:
The period between 1907 and 1912 is called analytical cubism. It is possible to see cylinders, cones, spheres and prisms in the works of this period, in which artists approach the image with geometric shapes. Of course, approaching reality from a different point in this way gradually began to gain an abstract meaning.
When we look at the works painted by Georges Braque and Picasso in 1911, we see that the thing on the canvas is starting to gain an abstract meaning. Painters opened up objects, turning them into transparent surfaces, eliminating borders, approaching reality like a kind of play dough. So much so that it became difficult to even understand what they were drawing.
Cubism also has a different meaning as an art philosophy:
It is not always right to approach cubism only as a painting movement because different approaches are seen in the works of artists. For example, some cubists glued objects such as sand, paper, newspaper pieces, and matchsticks to their canvases to add reality to their paintings. Others focused on the basic forms, drawing only the strings for the guitar, the bow for the violin, and the neck for the bottle.
When we approach from a philosophical point of view, we see that cubist works depict the simultaneous experience of more than one thing in different places. So there’s a big mess. But these scattered images and complex words are exactly what the cubists want to impart.
Cubism is a movement based on a philosophical approach. The reason they use all those geometric shapes is to touch reality. The reason why the subjects, events and objects they paint sometimes become incomprehensible is that, unlike impressionism, they are interested in the invisible, not the visible. So what you see in the cubic picture is actually something you’ve seen before, albeit from an angle you haven’t seen before.
The influence of cubism was seen not only in painting, but also in literature:
Cubism, like all art movements, although based on painting, influenced other branches of art. It is possible to see this effect especially in the sculptures of the period. We see its effects in literature mostly in poetry. Guillaume Apollinaire, who wrote cubic poems, also wrote the cubism manifesto. In the same period, Max Jacob wrote cubic poems with the method of split and combine.
Some of the Cubism movement artists:
- Albert Gleizes
- Alberto Giacometti
- Alexandra Ekster
- Alexander Archipenko
- Alexandra Nechita
- Amadeo De Souza Cardoso
- André Lhote
- Ang Kiukok
- Auguste Herbin
- Daniel Henry Kahnweiler
- David Hockney
- Diego Rivera
- Emil Filla
- Emiliano Di Cavalcanti
- Emilio Pettoruti
- Fernand Leger
- Francis Bacon
- Francis Picabia
- Franz Marc
- Frida Kahlo
- George Braque
- Gino Severini
- Henry Laurens
- Henri Le Fauconnier
- Jacob Lawrence
- Jacques Lipchitz
- Jacques Villon
- Jean Metzinger
- Juan Gris
- Kazimir Malevich
- Lyonel Feininger
- Lyubov Popova
- Marc Chagall
- Marcel Duchamp
- Maria Blanchard
- Marie Laurencin
- Mikhail Larionov
- Natalia Goncharova
- Pablo Picasso
- Paul Cezanne
- Paul Klee
- Piet Mondrian
- Raoul Dufy
- Raymond Duchamp-Villon
- Robert Delaunay
- Roger de La Fresnaye
- Romero Britto
- Rufino Tamayo
- Salvador Dali
- Vicente Manansala
- Victor Vasarely
We tried to understand this movement better through its artists by answering questions such as what is cubism, what it stands for, what are its characteristics, which is one of the most important art movements of the 20th century. Sometimes seeing reality doesn’t always mean seeing reality.
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