Cubism

Cubism

Cubism was formed during the early 20^th century, around 1907 and 1911. Cubism affected literature and architecture bust mostly affected art; Cubism looked to futurism and constructivism. So when I was learning about cubism I was told about the Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cezanne who was said to be the father of modern art, “is the father of us all"(Picasso). Cezanne’s style in his painting looks intensely at his topic and focuses less on composition. He focuses on the depth of what he looks at.

 The two Phases of cubism are The Synthetic phase (1907-1912) and the analytic phase (1913-1920).The analytic phase: the use of the palate was limited to mostly dark colours such as browns, greys, blacks and white; an examples would be Georges Braque. They everyday objects in their work. The Synthetic phase focused on even simpler shapes and started to use collage in their compositions. We now see colour used in cubism, which are much brighter. Robert Delauney is an artist from this phase.

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish Artist and is known as one of the first cubist artist; He was born on the 25th October 1881 and died on the 8th April 1973. In this painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, we can see Picasso’s early use of the cubist style; Cézanne’s style is obvious here as we can see he focus less on composition.

In 1909-1910 he created Figure dans un Fauteuil (Seated Nude, Femme nue assise), this painting shows analytic phase because of its use of colours and shapes. I found it difficult to guess what this painting is, only after reading the title did I know that it was a seated nude but I love Picasso still manages to show a body which blends easily into the back ground. To me it looks very modern and technical because of his use of shading. It has a very complex structure.

Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a synthetic Cubist, he worked using brighter colours giving his works a more decorative look. In a lot of his paintings he works using the Eiffel Tower in Paris, this building was only meant to stand for so long. He commonly uses when painting due to its manmade structure and height. When Delaunay paints the Eiffel Tower, he makes it seem like he is in the sky looking down on the building.  Tour Eiffel (1926), oil on canvas painting was the example of this where Delaunay uses colour that would never be seen on the Eiffel tower. I think it is interesting how he uses colour in this painting; it gets away from traditional art, colours and ideas.