Cubism

CUBISM

Cubism was the first form of abstract art and happened in the period of the early 20th century. The the key artist involved where Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso and a later participant was Juan Gris. The technique to cubism is the breaking up of a subject matter from all of its angles and then reassembling it in an abstract form. This makes the 3D subject become 2D. Pablo Picasso's painting, " Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" was considered to be the first cubist painting. The three main inspriations behind cubism are African sculptures, the Fauves and the artists Paul Cezanne and Georges Seurat.

The first type of cubism is known as Analytic cubism and was a significant art movement between 1908 and 1911 in France.  The style of this was having the different viewpoints of the subject in a geometrical framework with very little and subdued palette of colours. Here is an example. This is an oil painting by Geores Braque called "Violin and Jug" painted in 1910.

The second style of cubism was called Synthetic cubism and remained popular until 1919. This style was formed when Picasso began to glue printed images from the real world onto his still life work. He did this as cubism began to become predictable. Here is his painting "Still Life with Chair Caning" which opened a new door for himself and other artists for the second phase of cubism.

CUBIST PORTRAITS

This cubist portrait is by Picasso and was painting with oil onto canvas in 1910. It is called "Girl with a Mandolin and my favourite part is the background especially in the top right corner as it looks foggy/blurry. 

This cubist portrait was also by Picasso and was also created in 1910. It is again painted with oil and named "Portrait of Ambroise Vollard. I really like the dark colours and I think the expression of the face looks angry and gives a negative feel to the painting.