cubism art homework ideas

Summary of Cubism

Cubism developed in the aftermath of Pablo Picasso's shocking 1907 Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in a period of rapid experimentation between Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque . Drawing upon Paul Cezanne’s emphasis on the underlying architecture of form, these artists used multiple vantage points to fracture images into geometric forms. Rather than modelled forms in an illusionistic space, figures were depicted as dynamic arrangements of volumes and planes where background and foreground merged. The movement was one of the most groundbreaking of the early-20 th century as it challenged Renaissance depictions of space, leading almost directly to experiments with non-representation by many different artists. Artists working in the Cubist style went on to incorporate elements of collage and popular culture into their paintings and to experiment with sculpture. A number of artists adopted Picasso and Braque's geometric faceting of objects and space including Fernand Léger and Juan Gris , along with others that formed a group known as the Salon Cubists .

Key Ideas & Accomplishments

• The artists abandoned perspective, which had been used to depict space since the Renaissance, and they also turned away from the realistic modeling of figures.
• Cubists explored open form, piercing figures and objects by letting the space flow through them, blending background into foreground, and showing objects from various angles. Some historians have argued that these innovations represent a response to the changing experience of space, movement, and time in the modern world. This first phase of the movement was called Analytic Cubism .
• In the second phase of Cubism, Synthetic Cubism practicioners explored the use of non-art materials as abstract signs. Their use of newspaper would lead later historians to argue that, instead of being concerned above all with form, the artists were also acutely aware of current events, particularly World War I.
• Cubism paved the way for non-representational art by putting new emphasis on the unity between a depicted scene and the surface of the canvas. These experiments would be taken up by the likes of Piet Mondrian , who continued to explore their use of the grid, abstract system of signs, and shallow space.

Key Artists

Overview of Cubism

From 1907 to 1914 Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso worked so closely together, they dressed alike and joked that they were like the Wright brothers who invented the airplane - Picasso even called Braque "Wilbourg." Braque said, "The things that Picasso and I said to one another during those years will never be said again, and even if they were, no one would understand them anymore. It was like being roped together on a mountain," as the two spearheaded the development of the movement.

Artworks and Artists of Cubism

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

Artist: Pablo Picasso

Picasso's painting was shocking even to his closest artist friends both for its content and for its formal experimentation. The subject matter of nude women was not in itself unusual, but the fact that Picasso painted the women as prostitutes in aggressively sexual postures was novel. Their blatant sexuality was heightened by Picasso's influence from non-Western art that is most evident in the faces of three of the women, which are rendered as mask-like, suggesting that their sexuality is not just aggressive, but also primitive. The unusual formal elements of the painting were also part of its shock value. Picasso abandoned the Renaissance illusion of three-dimensionality, instead presenting a radically flattened picture plane that is broken up into geometric shards. For instance, the body of the standing woman in the center is composed of angles and sharp edges. Both the cloth wrapped around her lower body and her body itself are given the same amount of attention as the negative space around them as if all are in the foreground and all are equally important. The painting was widely thought to be immoral when it was finally exhibited in public in 1916. Braque is one of the few artists who studied it intently in 1907, leading directly to his later collaboration with Picasso. Because it predicted some of the characteristics of Cubism, Les Demoiselles is considered proto or pre-Cubist.

Oil on canvas - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Houses at L'Estaque

Artist: Georges Braque

In this painting, Braque shows the influence of Picasso's Les Demoiselles of the previous year and the work of Paul Cézanne. From Cézanne, he adapted the uni-directional, uniform brushwork, and flat spacing, while from Picasso he took the radical simplification of form and use of geometric shapes to define objects. There is, for example, no horizon line and no use of traditional shading to add depth to objects, so that the houses and the landscape all seem to overlap and to occupy the foreground of the picture plane. As a whole, this work made obvious his allegiance to Picasso's experiments and led to their collaboration.

Oil on Canvas - Hermann and Margrit Rupf Foundation, Bern

Violin and Palette

By 1909, Picasso and Braque were collaborating, painting largely interior scenes that included references to music, such as musical instruments or sheet music. In this early example of Analytic Cubism, Braque was experimenting further with shallow spacing by reducing the color palette to neutral browns and grays that further flatten out the space. The piece is also indicative of Braque's attempts to show the same item from different points of view. Some shading is used to create an impression of bas-relief with the various geometric shapes seeming to overlap slightly. Musical instruments such as guitars, violins, and clarinets show up frequently in Cubist paintings, particularly in the works of Braque who trained as a musician. By relying on such repeated subject matter, the works also encourage the viewer to concentrate on the stylistic innovations of Cubism rather than on the specificity of the subject matter.

Oil on Canvas - The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Artist: Jean Metzinger

When this painting was shown at the 1911 Salon d'Automne, the critic Andre Salmon dubbed it "The Mona Lisa of Cubism." While Picasso and Braque were dematerializing figures and objects in their works, Metzinger remained committed to legibility, reconciling modernity with classicism, thus Salmon's nickname for the work. Despite the realism of the painting, like other Cubists, Metzinger abandons the single point of view in use since the Renaissance. The female figure and the still life elements are shown from differing angles as if the artist had physically moved around the subject to capture it from different points of view at successive moments in time. The teacup is shown in both profile and from above, while the figure of the centrally positioned woman is shown both straight on and in profile. The painting was reproduced in Metzinger and Gleizes's book Du Cubisme (1912) and in Apollinaire's The Cubist Painters (1913). The work became better known at the time than any work by Picasso or Braque who had removed themselves from the public by not exhibiting at the Salon. For most people in the 1910s, Cubism was associated with artists like Metzinger, rather than its originators Picasso or Braque.

Oil on Cardboard - The Philadelphia Museum of Art

Picasso ups the ante in this work, pushing his experiments in new directions. Building on the overlapping, geometric shapes, Picasso moves further away from the Renaissance illusion of three-dimensionality and towards abstraction by reducing color and by increasing the illusion of low-relief sculpture even further than Braque did in Violin and Palette . Most significantly, however, Picasso included painted words on the canvas. The words, "ma jolie" not only flatten the space further, but they also liken the painting to a poster because they are painted in a font reminiscent of that used in advertising. This is the first time that an artist had so blatantly used elements of popular culture in a work of high art. This melding of high and low culture may have been influenced by the late-19 th -century posters of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Though they were made as advertisements for various entertainment venues, Toulouse-Lautrec's posters were appreciated as high art, perhaps because he was himself also a painter. Further linking Picasso's work to pop culture and to the everyday, "Ma Jolie" was also the name of a popular tune at the time as well as Picasso's nickname for his girlfriend.

Oil on Canvas - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Still Life with Chair Caning

By 1912, Picasso and Braque had exhausted their experiments with monochromatic color and with the illusion of low-relief sculpture across the surface of the canvas. In Still Life with Chair Caning , Picasso reintroduces color and goes further into experimentation with multiple perspectives. The image depicts a tabletop at a café; Picasso shows various objects on the table from multiple points of view including the knife, pieces of fruit, and wine glass that are in the top right of the image. Combining both paint and collage, Picasso also incorporates a piece of oilcloth (a cheap tablecloth) that resembles chair caning to reference to the type of seating common in a traditional café. The work is playful in that Picasso conveys the transparent quality of the tabletop by making it appear as if the caning of the chair can be seen through the glass. The spacing in the image, however, is even flatter than in previous works with no shading of objects, thus the café table is not depicted illusionistically as if in three dimensions, but conceptually. Finally, Picasso paints the words "JOU" that are both the first three letters of the French word for newspaper (Journal), thus referring both to the act of reading a newspaper at a café (the folded newspaper itself can be seen on the left), and also spell the first letters of the French word for "play", signifying the playfulness and experimental quality of the image. Not only is this the first time that collaged elements were included in a work of high art, but it has been argued that the bits of collaged newspaper reference the unstable political situation in Europe and perhaps Picasso's own anarchist tendencies. Even though this work is now synonymous with Cubist experiments, it was seen by few people at the time because Picasso did not show his works at public exhibits, but rather displayed his ideas to like-minded (avant-garde) collaborators.

Oil on canvas - The National Gallery, London

Maquette for Guitar

Picasso's experiments with collaged elements encouraged him to reconsider sculpture as well. Rather than a collage, however, Maquette for Guitar is an assemblage (or three-dimensional collage). While traditional sculpture was made up of a mass (or solid) surrounded by a void, using a material such as wood or marble that was then shaped by the hand of the artist, Picasso here takes pieces of cardboard, paper, string, and wire that he then folded, threaded, and glued together. This is the first time that a sculpture had been assembled from disparate parts. Rather than being a solid material, it fluidly integrates mass and its surrounding void. Picasso translated the Cubist interest in multiple perspectives and geometric form into a three-dimensional medium. The work is also groundbreaking in the history of 20 th -century sculpture in part because of Picasso's use of non-art materials that, like Ma Jolie , challenge the distinction between high art and popular culture.

Paperboard, paper, thread, string, twine, and coated wire - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Conquest of the Air

Artist: Roger de la Fresnaye

La Fresnaye's colorful and optimistic paintings did much to popularize Cubism before World War I. In The Conquest of Air , his most famous work, he depicts himself with his brother Henri, sitting at a table outdoors. The yellow hot-air balloon in the distant background likely refers to the oldest balloon race in the world, the Gordon Bennett cup, which took place annually from 1906 to 1938, with breaks during the war years. The race alternated between European cities, but was held first in Paris in 1906 and again in 1913. A French crew won the race in 1912, adding to their national honor in this arena as the French had invented the hot-air balloon in 1783, no doubt explaining the celebratory French flag in the painting. La Fresnaye's work shows influence from both traditional Cubism in its use of geometrical forms and also from Delaunay's Orphism in its bright color and use of the circle. He was a member of La Section d'Or Cubists from 1912-1914, but after the war became a well-known proponent of more traditional realism.

Oil on Canvas - The Museum of Modern Art, New York (Not on Display)

Electric Prisms

Artist: Sonia Delaunay

Robert and Sonia Delaunay exhibited with the Salon Cubists, and later founded the Orphism movement that was heavily influenced by Cubism. Like all Cubists, they used geometric forms and flattened perspective to show visual manipulation of their subject, but the Delaunays in particular had metaphysical interests in color and concept, often overlapping multiple scenes and views to suggest a fourth dimension. This multiplicity of scenes (or so-called theory of simultaneity) proposed that events and objects are "inextricably connected in time and space." Electric Prisms uses the sphere to represent this idea of overlap. In the work, different spheres convene into large concentric circles that are arranged to depict dynamic movement of electricity. Orphism was a short-lived movement but was a key phase in the transition from Cubism to non-representational art.

Oil on canvas - Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Still Life with Open Window, Rue Ravignan

Artist: Juan Gris

Of the Salon Cubists, Juan Gris' work is often considered closest to that of Picasso and Braque with whom Gris was in close contact beginning in 1911. By 1914, Gris had developed collage techniques in which he pasted elements from newspapers and magazines onto deconstructed, abstract scenes. His works were sometimes actual collages, but could also be paintings that resembled collages as in Still Life with Open Window . In this work Gris combined interior and exterior views through interlocking elements and subtle shifts in color, including an intense blue that suffuses the work and, like Synthetic Cubism, reintroduces color to the Cubist style. A still life in the foreground features traditional elements such as a book, a carafe, and a bottle of wine on an upturned tabletop. These objects are refracted through shafts of colored light from the open window that bring the neighboring houses and trees into the composition; the interior electric light contrasts with the moonlit scene outside the window. Gris's compositions were more calculating than those of other Cubists. Every element of the grid-like composition was refined to produce an interlocking arrangement without unnecessary detail. Within the grid, Gris balances different areas of the work: light to dark, monochrome to color, and lamplight inside the room to moonlight outside. The viewer has a sense of the still life as it exists in its surroundings.

Oil on canvas - National Gallery, Washington DC

Three Women

Artist: Fernand Léger

In Three Women , Léger updates the traditional theme of the reclining nude into a modern vocabulary that combines his various influences from Cubism and Futurism. The geometric forms of the figures indicate his Cubist sources, while his reliance on machine-like imagery is borrowed from Futurism. His pristine and colorful geometric forms are, however, much different from the faux low-relief sculptural effects used in Analytic Cubism. The shapes that make up the figures and objects, for example, do not overlap in the foreground, but are used to create an illusion of three-dimensionality. Thus, the furniture, the bodies of the women, and the spaces between them are easily distinguished. Léger's polished forms can be tied to the interest in classicism or "return to order" that was widespread in French art after the chaos of World War I. The machine-like precision and solidity of the objects and figures suggest Léger's faith in the modern world and the hope that technological advances and the machine age would together remake the world. Léger was badly injured in WWI, yet nevertheless presents a cheerful scene that relies on primary colors to convey his positive mindset about the benefits of modernity and technology, ultimately expressing his faith in the future.

Beginnings of Cubism

A watershed moment for the development of Cubism was the posthumous retrospective of Paul Cézanne's work at the Salon d'Automne in 1907. Cézanne's use of generic forms to simplify nature was incredibly influential to both Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque . In the previous year, Picasso was also introduced to non-Western art: seeing Iberian art in Spain, and African-influenced art by Matisse , and at the Trocadero anthropological museum. What drew Picasso to these artistic traditions was their use of an abstract or simplified representation of the human body rather than the naturalistic forms of the European Renaissance tradition.

The Breakthrough: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

These varying influences can be seen in Picasso's groundbreaking work of 1907, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon , which is considered a work of proto or pre-Cubism. In its radical distortion of figures, its rendering of volumes as fragmented planes, and its subdued palette, this work predicted some of the key characteristics of later Cubism.

Braque, on seeing Picasso's Les Demoiselles at his studio, intensified his similar explorations in simplification of form. He made a series of landscape paintings in the summer of 1908, including Houses at L'Estaque in which trees and mountains were rendered as shaded cubes and pyramids, resembling architectural forms. Cubism was introduced to the public with Braque's one-man exhibition at Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler's gallery on the rue Vignon in November 1908. It was this exhibit that led French art critic Louis Vauxcelles to describe them as "bizarreries cubiques," thus giving the movement its name.

The experiments of Picasso and Braque owe much to Kahnweiler, who was the major supporter of their work. Picasso and Braque were both quite poor in 1907 and Kahnweiler offered to buy their works as they painted them, thus freeing the artists from worrying about pleasing patrons or receiving negative reviews. After the 1908 exhibit, with few exceptions, the two artists exhibited only in Kahnweiler's gallery.

The Cubism of Picasso and Braque

The close collaboration between Picasso and Braque beginning in 1909 was crucial to the style's genesis. The two artists met regularly to discuss their progress, and at times it became hard to distinguish the work of one artist from another (as they liked it). Both were living in the bohemian Montmartre section of Paris in the years before and during World War I, making their collaboration easy.

In 1912, Kahnweiler gave his first public interview on Cubism, no doubt in response to growing public interest in (and some recognition of) the movement. When World War I began, Kahnweiler, as a German, was exiled from France. During the war, Léonce Rosenberg became the main dealer for Cubist art in Paris (including those of the Salon Cubists) with his brother Paul Rosenberg serving as Picasso's dealer during the interwar years.

Though Picasso and Braque returned to Cubist forms periodically throughout their careers and there were some exhibitions of work up until 1925, the two-man movement did not last much beyond World War I.

Salon or Section d'Or Cubism

The Salon Cubists , so-called because they showed their works at public exhibits such as the Salon d'Automne, did not work closely with Picasso and Braque but were influenced by their experiments. It was through the work of the Salon Cubists that the movement became widely known to the public in the early 1910s. These artists included Robert Delaunay , Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger , Juan Gris , Henri Le Fauconnier, Roger de La Fresnaye, and Jean Metzinger. Metzinger and Delaunay, who had been friends at least since 1906, began collaborating with Gleizes as a result of the yearly Salon d'Automne. It was through Gleizes that they met Le Fauconnier who had published Note sur la peinture (1910) in which he praised Picasso and Braque for their "total emancipation" of painting.

These artists exhibited together at the 1911 Salon des Independants, introducing Cubism to the general public. The Independants was a non-juried exhibition where public reaction depended on how and where paintings were hung. The Cubists got control of the hanging committee from the Neo-Impressionists so that their works could be hung together in one room as a coherent school. The paintings created a stir, as Gleizes noted: "While the newspapers sounded the alarm to alert people to the danger, and while appeals were made to the public authorities to do something about it, song writers, satirists and other men of wit and spirit provoked great pleasure among the leisured classes by playing with the word 'cube', discovering that it was a very suitable vehicle for inducing laughter which, as we all know, is the principle characteristic that distinguishes man from the animals."

In addition to showing their works in large exhibitions, the Salon Cubists were also distinct from Picasso and Braque in that they often worked on a large scale, leading one art historian to coin the term 'Epic Cubism' to distinguish their work from the more intimate paintings of Picasso and Braque. While they broke apart objects and bodies into geometric forms like those of Picasso and Braque, the Salon Cubists did not challenge Renaissance conceptions of space to the same extent nor did they embrace the monochromatic color of Analytic Cubism or the collage elements of Synthetic Cubism .

At the end of 1911 Gleizes and Metzinger, who lived closely together in the Parisian suburbs, and others in the group began meeting in Puteaux, a suburb where the painter and engraver Jacques Villon and his brother, the sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon had their studios (leading to them sometimes being called the Puteaux group). It is likely as a result of these meetings that the main ideas for Metzinger and Gleizes' On Cubism (1912) were formalized; it was the first published statement about the style.

The next year the group also planned the launch of the Salon de la Section d'Or (1912) that would bring together the most radical currents in painting. The term Section d'Or was a name the Salon Cubists adopted to show their attachment to the golden mean, i.e. the belief in order and the importance of mathematical proportions in their works that reflected those in nature. The Section d'Or exhibit was held after the 1912 Salon d'Automne at the Galerie La Boetie. It was at this exhibit that the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire coined the term Orphism to refer to the work of Delaunay. The next year Apollinaire published Aesthetic Meditations: The Cubist Painters (1913). These many exhibits and publications were calculated to make an impact, both in Paris and abroad.

As with the Cubism of Picasso and Braque, the Salon or Section d'Or group did not continue coherently after WWI, having only sporadic exhibits between 1918 and 1925.

Cubism: Concepts, Styles, and Trends

The various stages of development in the Cubist style are based on the work of Picasso and Braque rather than on those of the Salon Cubists. The exact names and dates of the stages are debated and continually reframed to this day.

Early Cubism (1908-09)

This early phase of the movement came in the wake of the Paul Cézanne retrospective in 1907 when many artists were reintroduced or introduced for the first time to the work of Cézanne, who had been living in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France before his death and had not exhibited in Paris for many years. Several artists who saw the retrospective were influenced by his lack of three-dimensionality, the material quality of his brushwork, and his use of uniform brushstrokes. Braque's Houses at L'Estaque (1908) is a good example of this type of Cubism.

Analytic Cubism (1910-12)

In this phase, Cubism developed in a highly systematic fashion. Later to be known as the Analytic period of the style, it was based on close observation of objects in their background contexts, often showing them from various vantage points. Picasso and Braque restricted their subject matter to the traditional genres of portraiture and still life and also limited their palette to earth tones and muted grays in order to lessen the clarity between the fragmented shapes of figures and objects. Although their works were often similar in appearance, their separate interests showed through over time. Braque tended to show objects exploding out or pulled apart into fragments, while Picasso rendered them magnetized, with attracting forces compelling elements of the pictorial space into the center of the composition. Works in this style include Braque's Violin and Palette (1909) and Picasso's Ma Jolie (1911-12).

Towards the end of this stage of Cubism, Juan Gris began to make contributions to the style: he maintained a sharp clarity to his forms, provided suggestions of a compositional grid, and introduced more color to what had been an austere, monochromatic style.

Synthetic Cubism (1912-14)

In 1912 both Picasso and Braque began to introduce foreign elements into their compositions, continuing their experiments with multiple perspectives. Picasso incorporated wall paper that imitated chair caning into Still Life with Chair-Caning (1912), thus initiating Cubist collage, and Braque began to glue newspaper to his canvases, beginning the movement's exploration of papier-colle . In part this may have resulted from the artists' growing discomfort with the radical abstraction of Analytic Cubism, though it could also be argued that these Synthetic experiments touched off an even more radical turn away from Renaissance depictions of space, and towards a more conceptual rendering of objects and figures. Picasso's experiments with sculpture are also included as part of the Synthetic Cubist style as they employ collaged elements.

Crystal Cubism (1915-22)

As a response to the chaos of war, there was a tendency among many French artists to pull back from radical experimentation; this inclination was not unique to Cubism. One art historian has described this stage of Cubism as the "end product of a progressive closing down of possibilities." In Léger's Three Women (1921), for example, the depicted subjects are hard-edged rather than resembling overlapping bits of low-relief sculpture; Léger also did not attempt to show objects from various angles. Crystal Cubism is associated with Salon Cubism as well as with the works of Picasso and Braque. Crystal Cubism is part of the larger trend known as a Return to Order (also known as Interwar Classicism) that was associated with artists in the School of Paris.

Later Developments - After Cubism

Cubism spread quickly throughout Europe in the 1910s, as much because of its systematic approach to rendering imagery as for the openness it offered in depicting objects in new ways. Critics were split over whether Cubists were concerned with representing imagery in a more objective manner - revealing more of its essential character - or whether they were principally interested in distortion and abstraction.

The movement lies at the root of a host of early-20 th century styles including Constructivism , Futurism , Suprematism , Orphism , and De Stijl . Many important artists went through a Cubist phase in their development, perhaps the most notable of whom was Marcel Duchamp whose notorious Nude Descending a Staircase (1912) garnered much attention and many negative reviews at the 1913 Armory Show in New York City.

The ideas in the movement also fed into more popular phenomena, like Art Deco design and architecture. Later movements such as Minimalism were also influenced by the Cubist use of the grid, and it is difficult to imagine the development of non-representational art without the experiments of the Cubists. Like other paradigm changing artistic movements of 20 th -century art, like Dada and Pop , Cubism shook the foundations of traditional artmaking by turning the Renaissance tradition on its head and changing the course of art history with reverberations that continue into the postmodern era.

Useful Resources on Cubism

• The Cubist Painters (Documents of Twentieth-Century Art) Our Pick By Guillaume Apollinaire
• Cubism A&I (Art and Ideas) By Neil Cox
• Picasso and the Invention of Cubism Our Pick By Mr. Pepe Karmel
• A Cubism Reader: Documents and Criticism, 1906-1914 By Mark Antliff, Patricia Leighten
• Cubism: Colour Library (Phaidon Colour Library) By Philip Cooper
• Architecture and Cubism (Centre Canadien d'Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture) By Eve Blau
• Picasso, Braque, and Early Film in Cubism By Tom Gunning
• The Czech Cubism Foundation
• Review of "Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914" at MoMA By Tyler Green / ARTINFO.com / March 23, 2011
• Art in Review; 'Inheriting Cubism' By Ken Johnson / The New York Times / December 7, 2001
• Picasso and Braque, Brothers in Cubism Our Pick By Michael Brenson / The New York Times / September 22, 1989
• Art: The Apprenticeship Of Stuart Davis as a Cubist By Roberta Smith / The New York Times / November 27, 1987
• "Cubism" is the title of a live concert film, from 2007, by the English electronic group The Pet Shop Boys

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Content compiled and written by The Art Story Contributors

Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors

Easy Cubism Art Project

Cubism is one of my favorite art genres to teach. Because of the influences of contemporary artists (think Romero Britto), children are familiar with how artists transforms everyday objects into geometric shapes, which is a huge hit with this easy cubism art project.

The earlier influences of cubism (Picasso, Klee, Cézanne and Braque) are just as fun and colorful. When I taught my Cubist-Inspired Picasso lesson to Kinders, I drew a fish, cut the fish into sections and shapes. Then, as a group, we put the fish together again in a new and different way. This exercise was really fun and emphasized the concept of abstraction (to take apart) and ultimately cubism.

My Easy Cubism Activities utilize the same concept: draw a familiar object then divide into shapes and lines. My third graders loved this project and although the instructions are the same, each child produced wildly different pieces.

I used Prismacolor markers for this project and are absolutely lovely. The colors are rich and heavy. Using card stock instead of sulfite paper makes coloring a pleasure. I read that using photo paper is a dream to use with markers so if you have a ream of that laying around, try it out!

Teach art from a cart? Learn why this lesson is a great choice by downloading this free checklist and lesson guide!

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Is there a literature book you would recommend to go along with this “easy cubism” lesson? I love how some of your art lessons include reading of a literature book 🙂 Susan

Hi Susan, Great question. You could tie in a book on Picasso or Klee. Laurence Anholt’s The Girl with the Ponytail is and especially good one for cubism.

Does this packet include a picture to color THEN CUT and put back together? I love the fish you did in the beginning, simple enough for my first graders.

Hi Amanda, The package includes two print outs of the same object: one plain and one patterned coloring page. There are a few options to create your own cubist projects. You can color and cut if you wish. Patty

I’m trying to download this, it doesn’t seem to work

It’s in the ART THROUGH THE AGES bundle

Hi, i am very much interested to learn cubism. Mat i know if you have an on-line class on this subject? If you do, may i know how much. Thank you very much.

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Modernisms 1900-1980

Course: modernisms 1900-1980   >   unit 3.

• Cubist Sculpture II
• The Case for Abstraction
• Picasso's Early Work
• Picasso, Portrait of Gertrude Stein
• Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein
• Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
• Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
• Pablo Picasso, Three Women

Inventing Cubism

• Cubism and multiple perspectives
• Synthetic Cubism, Part I
• Synthetic Cubism, Part II
• Salon Cubism
• Pablo Picasso and the new language of Cubism
• Braque, The Viaduct at L'Estaque
• Picasso, The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro
• Georges Braque, Violin and Palette
• Braque, The Portuguese
• Cubist Sculpture I
• Picasso, Guitar
• Picasso, Still Life with Chair Caning
• Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler
• Pablo Picasso, The Three Musicians
• Pablo Picasso, Guitar, Glass, and Bottle
• Conservation | Picasso's Guitars
• Picasso, Guernica
• Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso: Two Cubist Musicians
• Fernand Léger, "Contrast of Forms"
• Robert Delaunay, "Simultaneous Contrasts: Sun and Moon"
• The Cubist City – Robert Delaunay and Fernand Léger
• Juan Gris, The Table
• Cubism and its impact

A New Perspective

It [Cézanne's impact] was more than an influence, it was an invitation. Cézanne was the first to have broken away from erudite, mechanized perspective…[1]

Brothers of Invention

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Look Closer

All about cubism

Discover the radical 20th century art movement. This resource introduces cubist artists, ideas and techniques and provides discussion and activities.

Pablo Picasso Bottle of Vieux Marc, Glass, Guitar and Newspaper (1913) Tate

© Succession Picasso/DACS 2024

What is cubism and why was it so radical?

In around 1907 two artists living in Paris called Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque developed a revolutionary new style of painting which transformed everyday objects, landscapes, and people into geometric shapes. In 1908 art critic Louis Vauxcelles, saw some landscape paintings by Georges Braque (similar to the picture shown above) in an exhibition in Paris, and described them as ‘bizarreries cubiques’ which translates as ‘cubist oddities’ – and the term cubism was coined.

By comparing a cubist still life with an earlier still life painted using a more traditional approach, we can see immediately just what it is that made cubism look so radically different from earlier painting styles. Both paintings are of musical instruments. The first is by Edward Collier and was painted in the seventeenth century. The second is by cubist Georges Braque.

Edward Collier Still Life with a Volume of Wither’s ‘Emblemes’ (1696) Tate

Georges Braque Mandora (1909–10) Tate

© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2024

Compare the way the instruments are painted in the paintings. Which look the most real? How has Collier made the objects in his painting look realistic? (Look at how he has used shading or tone , colour, perspective and also how he has applied the paint). What rules do you think the cubists broke?

Collier's Still Life looks realistic because...

• His use of colour to help us recognise the objects. A golden brown colour suggests the wood of the stringed instruments and table; the book and sheet music are black (ink) and white (paper); the grapes are a lush dark purple; and he has even cleverly recreated the metallic surface of the two-handled bowl using dark greys and whites
• His use of light and dark tones (shadows and highlights) to suggest the three-dimensional quality of the objects. Look at the side of the stringed instrument at the front of the painting. Light reflects off the raised surface closest to us, but as this curves away from us, the tone used is darker to suggest that it is more in shadow.The background is a shadowy dark space behind the table
• His use of perspective to create the impression of a real space with objects in the foreground looking bigger and clearer and objects behind looking smaller and less clear.

Braque's Mandora is different because...

• Although the shape of the mandora (a stringed instrument similar to a lute) is fairly clear, and if we look closely we can make out a bottle behind it, there is very little difference between the way Braque has painted the objects and the space around them. He has fragmented the whole image into tiny flat geometric shapes so the edges of the objects are less clear
• He has not used realistic colours for the different objects in the painting, instead he has used the same small range of muted colours – black, greys, ochres and earthy greens – for all the objects (no matter what they are) and the background
• He has not used perspective, or tone (light and shadow) to create the illusion of three-dimensional space or three-dimensional objects. Although there are lighter and darker tones within the painting, and these do sometimes create the appearance of three-dimensions (a dark tone is used for the side of the mandora making it look like a solid object); the tone is not always used in this way and sometimes seems confusing. The mandora, the objects behind it, and the background all seem to sit on the same level – on the flat surface of the picture, with no foreground or background, and no illusion of receding space.

Meet the cubists

Brassaï, photo of Picasso in his studio at 23 rue La Boétie, standing in front of Rousseau’s Portrait of a Woman 1932. Musée Picasso © ESTATE BRASSAÏ -R.M.N.

Georges Braque , London 1946 (inner pages) from Tate Publishing

In 1907 Georges Braque visited Pablo Picasso’s studio. This studio visit marked the beginning of one of the most important friendships in the history of art. Over the next few months and years the two artists shared their ideas, scrutinized each other’s work, challenged and encouraged each other. At some stage in around 1907 or 1908 they invented an exciting new style of painting – cubism . Their close working relationship at that time was later described by Georges Braque:

The things that Picasso and I said to one another during those years will never be said again, and even if they were, no one would understand them anymore. It was like being roped together on a mountain

Picasso and Braque were soon joined in their art adventure by other artists who were experimenting with different ways of depicting the world around them. Artists such as Juan Gris , Albert Gleizes , Jean Metzinger and Robert Delaunay who all worked in a cubist style.

Cubism explained

Georges Braque Bottle and Fishes (c.1910–12) Tate

Cubism looks very different to lots of other styles of painting. How does it work? What were Braque and Picasso's reasons for turning their back on traditional techniques? How did the cubists develop their new style?

The illusion of space

Since the Renaissance in the fifteenth century, European artists had aimed to create the illusion of three-dimensional space in their drawings and paintings. They wanted the experience of looking at a painting to be like looking through a window onto a real landscape, interior, person or object.

How do you make things look three-dimensional on a two-dimensional surface? Techniques such as linear perspective and tonal gradation are used. Perspective involves making things look bigger and clearer when they are close up, and smaller and less clear when they are further away. By doing this you can create the illusion of space. Artists also use tones (shadows) to create the illusion of three-dimensional objects. By gradually changing the darkness of a shadow, you can make something look solid.

These drawings by J.M.W Turner show how perspective and tone (or shadow) can be used to create the illusion of real, solid three-dimensional objects.

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram 42: Perspective Construction of a Tuscan Entablature (c.1810) Tate

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram 70: A Ruined Amphitheatre (c.1810) Tate

A new reality

The cubists however, felt that this type of illusion is trickery and does not give a real experience of the object.

Their aim was to show things as they really are, not just to show what they look like. They felt that they could give the viewer a more accurate understanding of an object, landscape or person by showing it from different angles or viewpoints, so they used flat geometric shapes to represent the different sides and angles of the objects. By doing this, they could suggest three-dimensional qualities and structure without using techniques such as perspective and shading.

This breaking down of the real world into flat geometric shapes also emphasized the two-dimensional flatness of the canvas. This suited the cubists’ belief that a painting should not pretend to be like a window onto a realistic scene but as a flat surface it should behave like one.

Look at this painting by Georges Braque of a glass on a table. Can you spot the techniques he has used to emphasize the flatness of the picture, but at the same time, made the objects look solid?

Georges Braque Glass on a Table (1909–10) Tate

The phases of cubism: Analytical vs synthetic

Cubism can be split into two distinct phases. The first phase, analytical cubism , is considered to have run until around 1912. It looks more austere or serious. Objects are split into lots of flat shapes representing the views of them from different angles, and muted colours and darker tones or shades are used. The second phase, synthetic cubism , involves simpler shapes and brighter colours (and looks more light-hearted and fun!)

Practical activities

David Hockney Caribbean Tea Time (1987) Tate

© David Hockney

Use these activity suggestions to explore ideas and create a cubist masterpiece updated for the twenty-first century.

Activity 1: Research influences

Paul Cézanne The Grounds of the Château Noir c.1900–6 Lent by the National Gallery 1997

Carved wooden female figure (minsereh) Mende, probably late 19th century AD, From Sierra Leone Trustees of the British Museum

There were two key influences on the development of cubist style: the paintings of Paul Cézanne and sculptures created by non-European artists. Use these activities to explore these two artistic approaches

Cézanne’s approach

Braque and Picasso greatly admired Paul Cézanne . Cézanne’s paintings of figures and landscapes are made up of small planes (flat shapes) and repeated brush strokes. They often seem to be painted from slightly different viewpoints. It is this influence that we can see in the work of the cubists.

If you look at Cézanne’s painting of trees and rocks in the grounds of the Château Noir, the surface seems to vibrate with a mesh of tiny interlocking planes.

• Select a small section of the image and copy it, enlarging it so that it fills your page
• Use paint, crayons or pastels to copy the marks and colours

Sculptures from non-European cultures

Picasso and Braque were amazed by the sculptures they saw in the Trocadero museum in Paris. Picasso described sculptures from French Polynesia and Africa as ‘the most powerful and most beautiful things the human imagination has ever produced’.

Look closely at the sculpture above. Think about the following and make notes in your sketchbook

• Where is it from?
• How big do you think it is?
• Is it realistic?
• Has the sculptor simplified the figure?
• Do parts of it seem exaggerated or emphasised?
• What does the sculpture make you think and feel?
• What do you think the sculpture was originally made for?

Create a portrait using sculptures from non-European cultures as your inspiration. This can be a self-portrait or a portrait of someone else.

• Use your notes about the sculpture you chose from the slideshow above to help you with approach and technique
• How has the sculptor simplified and exaggerated the forms. What effect does this have on your response to the work?
• Can you create a similar effect in your portrait?

Activity 2: Investigate viewpoints

The cubists wanted to show the whole structure of objects in their paintings without using techniques such as perspective or graded shading to make them look realistic. They wanted to show things as they really are – not just to show what they look like. They did this by:

• Emphasizing the flatness of the picture surface by breaking objects down into geometric shapes
• Depicting objects from lots of different angles. In this way they could suggest the three-dimensional quality of objects without making them look realistic.

Create a simple still life using the cubist technique of multiple viewpoints

• Choose three simple objects and group them together (e.g. trainer, mobile phone, apple, headphones, soft-drink can)
• Sketch or photograph the group of objects from four different viewpoints. (Viewpoints could include from the front, from above, from each side, from close-up, from far away…)
• Cut up each sketch or photograph into eight sections
• Choose two sections from each original sketch / photograph and put them together to form one image .

If you have access to picture editing software you can use this to create your picture. Use the tips below:

• Photograph your still life from four different viewpoints and save these images
• Select a small section from each photograph using the square marquee tool
• Open a new image and paste two sections from each original photograph to form your different viewpoint still life.

Activity 3: Explore shape, pattern, and texture

Juan Gris The Sunblind (1914) Tate

Pablo Picasso Bowl of Fruit, Violin and Bottle (1914) Lent by the National Gallery 1997

Juan Gris Bottle of Rum and Newspaper (1913–14) Tate

From around 1912 Braque , Picasso , and other artists working in a cubist style such as Juan Gris , started to use simpler shapes and lines and brighter colours in their artworks. They also began to add textures and patterns to their work, often collaging newspaper or other patterned paper directly into their paintings. This approach was called synthetic cubism. Browse the slideshow to remind yourself what it looks like.

Create a still life in the synthetic cubist style that explores shape, pattern and texture. Use the three objects you selected earlier, but this time use only flat shapes, simple lines and patterns to depict them in a still life. Here are some ideas.

• You could draw a simple outline of the objects onto brightly coloured or patterned sheets of paper such as newspaper or wrapping paper. Cut these shapes out and collage them into your still life
• Think about the negative shapes (the shapes left in the paper once you have cut your object out of it). Could you add these to your still life?
• Look at the shadows made by the objects. How can you make these shadow shapes part of the work?
• If your objects include text or numbers (such as the title of a book or a brand name on trainers), use numbers or letters cut from a magazine or newspaper
• Don’t be afraid to mix media. Use charcoal or wax crayon to draw shapes or details over collage. Use paint to cover flat bright areas, or to add texture or pattern to your still life.

If you are still stuck for ideas, this animation may help!

• iMap animation: Pablo Picasso, Bowl of Fruit, Violin and Bottle 1913

Activity 4: Be inspired by other artists

John Stezaker Third Person (1988–9) Tate

© John Stezaker

Phoebe Unwin Man with Heavy Limbs (2009) Tate

© Phoebe Unwin

Richard Hamilton Interior (1964–5) Tate

© The estate of Richard Hamilton

Albert Gleizes Painting (1921) Tate

Francis Bacon Three Figures and Portrait (1975) Tate

© Estate of Francis Bacon

Patrick Caulfield Hemingway Never Ate Here (1999) Tate

© The estate of Patrick Caulfield. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2024

Braque and Picasso developed cubism a century ago, but artists and designers have been influenced by the ideas and techniques ever since. How have they updated cubism?

Choose a cubist-inspired artwork from the works above or from Tate’s collection . Make a quick drawing of it in your sketchbook. Think about the following and annotate (add notes to) your drawing with your thoughts:

• How do you think the artist was influenced by cubism?
• Why do you like the artwork? What does it make you think or feel?
• Is there anything in the artist’s approach that gives you ideas for how you could update cubism?

Activity 5: Create your own cubist artwork

You have investigated cubist sources and approaches and have researched how other artists have used cubist ideas and style. Now plan your artwork using what you have discovered, and update cubism for the twenty-first century.

• Review what you have found out about cubism
• Decide what you think are the key features of cubism. Which of these will you make use of in your artwork? List your ideas in your sketchbook
• Braque and Picasso painted ordinary objects that were part of their everyday lives. Think of objects that reflect your lifestyle and interests. Make a note of them in your sketchbook
• Braque and Picasso experimented with techniques and approaches. Can you think of ways you could use technology to make a state-of-the-art still life?

You should now have plenty of ideas for your updated cubist still life. Picasso and Braque were innovators, experimenting with radical new approaches in the way they depicted the world they saw around them. Their artworks still seem exciting and daring to us one hundred years later. Make sure your artwork has what it takes to inspire others and stands the test of time!

Cubist artists in the collection

Pablo picasso, georges braque, related terms and concepts.

Cubism was a revolutionary new approach to representing reality invented in around 1907–08 by artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. They brought different views of subjects (usually objects or figures) together in the same picture, resulting in paintings that appear fragmented and abstracted

Orphism was an abstract, cubist influenced painting style developed by Robert and Sonia Delaunay around 1912

Analytical cubism

The term analytical cubism describes the early phase of cubism, generally considered to run from 1908–12, characterised by a fragmentary appearance of multiple viewpoints and overlapping planes

Synthetic cubism

Synthetic cubism is the later phase of cubism, generally considered to run from about 1912 to 1914, characterised by simpler shapes and brighter colours

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CUBISM A BEGINNER’S GUIDE

Cubism Introduction

Welcome to this month’s Oil Painting Blog. *

Last month, we looked at Post-Impressionism and artists such as Van Gogh, Gauguin and Cezanne.

This month, we will be focusing on another key artist movement – Cubism.

I think this is a natural progression, given that, it is often said that the work of Cezanne set the stage for Cubism. In 1907, a year after his death, a landmark retrospective of his artwork was held at the Salon d’Automne, this proved to have a lasting impact on many influential artists of that time. These artists would go on to echo Cezanne’s train of thought – that all-natural forms could be analysed as cylinders, spheres or cones [1] – essentially, geometric reductions – known as Cezanne Cubism or Proto Cubism.[2]

Cubism was a movement that broke with academic tradition. All rules of modelling, foreshortening and perspective developed and established since the time of the Renaissance masters [3], were basically fired out the window, and completely rejected by all those involved in this art movement.

Instead, over a relatively short period of 6 years (1908 – 1914), Cubists began to analyse structure, simplifying it to a two-dimensional form, but at the same time, fracturing it from multiple viewpoints – this was Stage One – known as ‘Early Cubism’ or ‘Analytic Cubism’ (1908 – 1912).

Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier) Pablo Picasso 1910

Rhum et Guitare (Rum and Guitar) Georges Braque 1918

Colección Abelló , Madrid

Initially, Cubists used a limited colour pallet but as the movement develop so to, did their use of colour and style, which also underwent a further simplification of form – this was Stage Two – known as ‘Late Cubism’ or ‘Synthetic Cubism’ (1912-1914).

Les Baigneuses (The Bathers) Albert Gleizes 1912

Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

Femme à l’Éventail (Woman with a Fan) Jean Metzinger 1912

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

After 1914, Cubism developed into the overlapping of geometric planes and flat surfaces known as ‘Crystal Cubism’ (1914 – 1918). Thereafter, it went on to influence many new art movements.

Soldat jouant aux échecs (Soldier at a Game of Chess) Jean Metzinger 1914-15

Smart Museum of Art

Cubism – The Beginning

In 1907, Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon Pablo Picasso 1907

Museum of Modern Art, New York

It took 9 months to complete, and, at the time, was called the most innovative painting since the work of Giotto. [4]

Initially, inspired by Picasso’s fascination with Iberian sculpture and African and Oceanic masks, it depicts a group of nude prostitutes in a brothel in Avignon, Barcelona’s red-light district. The painting is often seen as the starting point for Cubism. [5] It went on to influence Charles Braque, initially a sceptic, like many artists close to Picasso, however, after painting a large nude himself under the influence of this painting, he became a co-creator with Picasso, and together they pushed visual representation to its limits. [6]

Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973)

George Braque (1882 – 1963)

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Inspired by the work of Picasso and Braque, another group of artists, including André Lhote (1885 – 1962) and Albert Gleize (1881 – 1953), helped bring the movement forward, by employing bright colours and paying homage to Cezanne.

French Landscape André Lhote 1912

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

Portrait de Jacques Nayral Albert Gleizes 1911

Tate Modern, London

However, their exhibitions at the Salon des Independents of 1911 and 1912, were a public scandal, with the artworks being considered as shocking, radical, and leading to questions being asked in government in protest of this apparent waste of money. [7] This all helped however to bring the movement to the attention of Paris and in 1912, the first book on the subject was published by Gleizes and Jean Metzinger (1883 – 1956).

Cubism – The Ending?

With the onset of the Great War in 1914 – 1918, Cubism became less popular.

Many of the artists involved in the movement, had been conscripted into the French Army including Braque who suffered a head wound and parted ways from Picasso thereafter.

Following the War, there was a widespread reaction against Cubism – sometimes called the “Return to Order” [8]. It was the overall impact of trench warfare and the destruction of the human body on an unprecedented scale, that perhaps led to this “Return to Order” and a “Return to Figuration” [9] in the art world.

However, that being said, Cubism, laid the groundwork for the next 50 years in 20 th Century Modern Art, influencing many new art movements including, Futurism, Surrealism, Dada, De Stijl, Bauhaus and Abstract Expressionism.

Cubism and the Irish

After the War ended, it was once again safe for Irish artists to travel and train in Paris. Most notably May Guinness, Jack Hanlon, Evie Hone, Mainie Jellett, Nora McGuinness and Mary Swanzy.

Between 1920 – 1930’s, many of these artists trained and/or were heavily influenced by Lhote and Gleizes and this also helped in the continuation of the Cubist movement.

Oil Painting à la mode d’André Lhote Mary Swanzy undated

Drogheda’s Municipal Art Gallery

Homage to Fra Angelico Maine Jellett 1928

Image from Adams Catalogue

If you would like to learn more on Cubism, the Crawford Art Gallery , Irish Museum of Modern Art and the F.E. McWilliam Gallery & Studio together published Analysing Cubism which is well worth a read.

We will be taking our summer break in June and July. However, our oil painting blogs will be back again on the last Tuesday in August, where we will be looking at some key artists and how their painting style changed over the course of their lives.

Until then have a great Summer!!

Emily May 2022

* As always, I am not affiliated with any brands, stores, or persons I may or may not mention and your use of any of these products, links and the like are your own risk and it’s up to you to do your research/homework before you use them. This is just my opinion and experience.

[1] Paul Cézanne, Letters, ed. John Rewald, 4th ed., New York, 1976, p. 301

[2]  Abstract Painting and Sculpture, Crystal Cubism (1915 – 1916), http://www.abstractpaintingsandsculpture.com/artist/crystal-cubism-art-1915-1916/

[3] Kissane S., Analysing Cubism, (Pub Crawford Art Gallery 2013) p.12

[4] Payne, L., Essential Picasso, 1 st edn (2000) (Parragon), p.60.

[5] Hodge, S., Everything you need to know about the greatest artists and their works, 2 nd Edn (Quercus Editions Ltd) (2013), p.186

[6] Artists, Their Lives and Works, 1 st edn (2017) (DK Penguin Random House) p.291

[7] Kissane S., Analysing Cubism, (Pub Crawford Art Gallery 2013) p.13

[8] A, Graham-Dixon, ‘Art – The Definitive Visual Guide’ (1 st edn, Penguin 2008) p.416

[9] Kissane S., Analysing Cubism, (Pub Crawford Art Gallery 2013) p.14

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Cubism Lesson and Homework

Subject: Art and design

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

14 November 2018

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Age and G rade Level This is a good lesson for adults and children who have mastered some abstract thinking ability.  This lesson is best above second grade, but advanced kindergarten children enjoy it.  Teaching the L esson Do NOT show artwork or say the word cubism until near the end of the lesson. Do NOT demonstrate. Students learn by doing.

H ave students practice from the motivations behind cubism without first seeing cubist images. Just like real artists are inventors, guide students to make discoveries , we help students discover cubism themselves. Celebrate with them. Help your students develop the habits of thinking used by highly creative people rather than teaching them to emulate artists by copying the mere look of their work. In order to do this, the teacher has studied cubism and has a working understanding of the theories and aesthetic motivations of historic cubism. Traditionally, art historians have supposed that cubism represented a way of seeing our world from multiple viewpoints simultaneously, but now we have strong evidence that Braque and Picasso were influenced by the invention of motion pictures.

In 2007, there was a ground-breaking exhibition: Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism at the Pace Wildenstein in Brooklyn, New York, April 20 – June 23, 2007. Arne Glimcher and Bernice Rose invented and curated this very innovative exhibition that illustrates the influences of early motion picture film on minds of Picasso and Braque. Numerous art historians and painters have studied cubism for nearly 100 years and have never seen what has long seemed very obvious to Arne Glimcher. See sources below: #1 Micchelli, #2 Rose

Subject Matter The teacher guides the students who learn to set up a large still life in the middle of the room or several small setups in the middle of their work tables.  They bring in sporting stuff, stuffed toys, musical instruments, some cloth, a few dry weeds, and so on.  

Depending of the season, some teachers bring large sunflowers, grapes, gourds, squash, onions, eggplant, apples, and so forth from the garden.  Cut a few of these in half.  Taste and smell are excellent multi-sensory motivation.

Another variation uses one or two student models that move according to teacher prompts to simulate a dance motion or an athletic action. In the variation below, two chickens move about while the class draws them.

Instructions for the Creative Process

• If working at tables (observing a still-life or animal), encourage students to stand up while drawing so they use arm motions instead finger motions.  Ask them to begin by selecting an interesting area in the setup and drawing very large so things go off the edges.  Cardboard viewfinders (or empty 35 mm slide frames) are helpful in finding and sizing things. If it is a still-life, students work for few minutes until the teacher has them move to a completely different position and continue drawing the same objects on the same paper overlapping with the drawing they started (or move the still-life).
• Ask thinking questions and experiment questions. "What happens when you change the size or scale when you change position?  For those that have been drawing large: "What happens when you add small detail?" For those that draw small: "What happens when you make the next part very much larger? How does it seem to move in and out in from your paper?" As much as posible, try to use open questions and "what if" questions rather than commands or suggestions.
• Repeat drawing and moving to a new position until the paper begins to fill with overlapping and transparent drawing content. 
• After a few moves, invite students to slowly walk around to see how other students have worked at the problem.  Affirm a diversity of approaches. Ask them a series of open questions to make them aware of motion and time. "How do the drawings suggest motion? Does anything in the drawings look farther away or closer to you? How does this happen? What things are repeated with variation? Can you see things about the drawings that move you into the drawing or away from the drawing? Do you see the effects of size change, of repetition, of gradation, and so on?"  
• As the paper begins to fill with overlapping shapes, ask them what happens when you shade in and color the drawing to create an overall pattern.  What is the effect of gradations? What if they include some recognizable places here and there? Can the evaluation is to be more on overall design and movement than on realism?  Ask them how they can make adjustments in the compositions to achieve unity and harmony so that no one area becomes too dominant or different than the whole.
• When most of them appear to be nearly complete, or when the first to finish feel they are done, have them all stop and form groups of three.
• Prohibit negative responses. Encourage the use of questions that analyze and speculate. 
• Using six eyes instead of two, ask them to look at each other's work and tell them what parts of their pictures they notice first and why.  What parts are showing most emphasis and what parts show the least emphasis.  Encourage every student to participate, to form questions, to describe what is noticed, to analyze, and to speculate.
• Ask them to discuss time and motion in the works.
• They are not to use judgmental terms like good or bad, just say what they see that shows the most and try to give some reasons and explanations.

Continue the Creative Process If a student asks the teacher to tell what to do next or if it is good enough, the teacher asks them a question that gets them remember the process or to look at parts that they may have missed.  The teacher refrains from telling them what to do.  The teacher does not make a suggestion .  The teacher gives them open choices rather than commands or directions.  The product is not supposed to have a certain look, but the students are supposed to learn to make their own artistic choices based on criteria the teacher gives.  Resist the temptation to make specific suggestions. Student thinking is cultivated better when the teacher honors the student ideas and does not do the thinking for the students.

Ending Critique

• When they are done, have them post the work for all to see.  Discuss the work by again asking what they notice first. Do not allow negative comments. 
• Follow the initial response by asking for explanations of  why they notice certain things.  This is not judging, it is describing and analyzing. If students miss things, the teacher asks about them. "Why do I see motion in this drawing?"  
• Sometimes it is also interesting to speculate about the meaning of their pictures (interpretation).  Making up titles helps with this.
• Show one or more example(s) of Georges Braque and or Picasso who invented cubism (use any general reference art history book, library books on artists, slides, reproductions, posters, and/or the internet).  It is quite easy to print color pictures from the web onto transparencies blanks made for ink jet printers (footnote web sources). These can be shown in a class with an overhead projector if your class does not have a computer projector to show them directly from the web site.  Kennedy - Rose
• Ask them to speculate about the process the artist(s) must have used to come up with their compositions.  Ask them how they think the artist was looking at the work.
• Ask them to speculate about the reasons the artist decided not to simply show a simple picture of the subject matter. 
• Ask them to remember the way motion pictures move from clip to clip to tell a story. Kennedy - Rose
• Explain the word Cubism and give a bit of background on how innovative it was in the art world at the time it was invented.
• David Hockney is a contemporary British artist who has played with these concepts by using photography to make many pictures of of the same thing and putting them all together in a composition that gives what he feels is a much more realistic impression of how we perceive the world.  He likens the typical camera's photograph to the view of one eyed single impression Cyclops.  He claims that as humans we really see the world by mentally composing reality from many visual  impressions of a subject or scene.  Which is realism?
• Ask the students to write a short paragraph about what kind of art they think Picasso and Braque would invent if they where living today with cell phones, high speed Internet, and space travel.
• Students are asked to make sketchbook entries that cover a portion of a typical day all in one overlapping and transparent composition.  For example, each sketch combines several aspects of the morning trip to school or the afternoon trip home. 
• Aesthetically, they are encouraged to reflect on the differences in their feelings in the morning compared to their feelings in the afternoon.  How does is difference in feeling represented in their cubist time sequence compositions.  Could it be done with color relationships, with size, with line type, or another device?
• Ask a review question. 
• Ask an art vocabulary question.  What does "emphasis" mean in a composition?  What does "unity" mean?  What are the differences between "unity" and "harmony"?
• How are artists similar to inventors?
• Is cubism more or less realistic than realism?
• How is the passage of time be shown in a drawing?
• Which is more beautiful, movement or symmetry and stability?
• What are the ways to show motion in a drawing?
• Which of you previous projects would be more fun if they included what we learned about motion today?

Review is even more effective if it is done again at the beginning of the next session a day or more later.  When a teacher expects students to remember things from session to session, students thinking habits are gradually trained to remember. They learn to expect that what is being learned has a purpose and it is to be incorporated into the next project. Ask questions that connect previous learning with today's questions and artwork.

To encourage creativity, pose questions that will be coming up in art class in the near future. I try to respond with enthusiasm to unexpected results--even when they are unexpected by me. "Wow! How did you do that?"

<><> END OF LESSON <><>

Credit:  This lesson was inspired by a similar lesson developed and taught by Judy Wenig-Horswell , Associate Professor of Art, Goshen College.

Not enough time to do this lesson? Do not take shortcuts. Think of it as a unit that continues for as many sessions as are needed to do it well. Start each session with warm-up and review. Many more things are learned when we take the time to do something well.  Teaching many short lessons leaves the impression that art is quick and easy. Art is not a bunch of products.  It is a way of thinking and working that materializes and expresses ideas. Artist know that things worth doing take time and may require lots of experimentation.

SOURCES AND REFERENCES USED ABOVE - - - - Top of page

Kennedy, R. (2007) “When Picasso and Braque Went to the Movies.” New York Times, April 15, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/arts/design/15kenn.html [retrieved 12/14/2010]

  Rose, C. (2007) “A discussion about Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism with Bernice Rose and Arne Glimcher in Art & Design ” Friday, June 8, 2007 ” Charlie Rose, © 2010

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/8540 [retrieved 12/14/2010]

All Rights reserved © 2001, 2nd edition in 2008, by Marvin Bartel, Emeritus Professor of Art, Goshen College. All text and photo rights reserved. You are invited to link this page to your page. For permission to reproduce or place this page on your site or to make printed copies, contact the author. Marvin Bartel, Ed.D., Emeritus Professor of Art Adjunct in Art Education Goshen College , 1700 South Main St., Goshen IN 46526 Author Bio updated: December 2008 A link to lessons on Cubism from New Zealand

GOSHEN COLLEGE Goshen, IN - USA

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How to Do a Cubist Style Painting

Last Updated: April 4, 2024 Approved

This article was co-authored by Kelly Medford . Kelly Medford is an American painter based in Rome, Italy. She studied classical painting, drawing and printmaking both in the U.S. and in Italy. She works primarily en plein air on the streets of Rome, and also travels for private international collectors on commission. She founded Sketching Rome Tours in 2012 where she teaches sketchbook journaling to visitors of Rome. Kelly is a graduate of the Florence Academy of Art. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article received 14 testimonials and 84% of readers who voted found it helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 271,418 times.

Cubism is a style of painting that originated with Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso between 1907 and 1914. [1] X Research source The Cubist style sought to show the two-dimensional nature of the canvas. Cubist artists fractured their objects into geometric forms and used multiple and contrasting perspectives in a single painting. It was called Cubism when Louis Vauxcelles, a French art critic, called the forms in Braque’s work “cubes.” Creating your own Cubist style painting can be a fun way to connect with art history and look at painting with a fresh perspective.

Preparing to Paint Your Cubist Art

• Lay down newspaper in your work area to keep it clean.
• Use a glass of water and a soft rag to clean your paintbrushes between colors.

• If you just want to practice, you can also create paintings on large multi-media art paper.
• Your local art supply store should carry paper and canvas.

• You can use any type of paint to achieve a Cubist style, but acrylic works well, especially for beginners. Acrylic paints are versatile, often less expensive than oil paints, and make it easier to create crisp lines. [3] X Research source
• Pick paintbrushes that are labeled for acrylic paints. Get a few different sizes for versatility while you paint.
• Make sure you have a pencil and gum eraser on hand to sketch before you begin to paint.
• You may also need a ruler or yardstick to help guide your lines and make them crisp and straight.

• Decide whether you want to paint a human figure, a landscape, or a still life.
• Choose something that you can look at and study in real life while you are painting. For example, if you want to do a figure, see if a friend can pose for you. If you’d like to paint a still life, arrange a group of objects or an object, like a musical instrument, in front of you.

• Once you have a general sketch, use your ruler to sharpen the edges.
• In any place you’ve sketched soft, rounded lines, go back over them and change them into sharp lines and edges.
• For example, if you’re sketching a person, you might go over the rounded line of the shoulder and make it look more like the top of a rectangle.

Putting Your Idea on Canvas

• Look at the light. Instead of shading and blending, in Cubism, you will use the light to create shapes. Outline, in geometric shapes, where the light falls in your painting.
• Also, use geometric lines to show where you would generally shade in a painting.
• Don’t be afraid to overlap your lines.

• If you want to use bright colors, choose to use between one and three main bright colors so that your painting retains its striking geometry.
• You can also use a monochromatic palette in a single color family. For example, Picasso did many paintings mainly in shades of blue.
• Put your paints onto your palette or a paper plate in front of you. Use white to make shades lighter. Mix the colors that you want.

• With acrylic paints, you can layer colors to make your paintings feel more dimensional.
• If you need to do so, use your ruler to guide your paintbrush, like you did your pencil. You want your paint lines to be just as crisp as your pencil lines.

Making a Cubist Painting for Kids

• Washable acrylic paints work well for painting with kids. You can also create a “painting” masterpiece with markers, crayons, or colored pencils.
• Choose a large sheet of art paper or a notebook of paper to make your Cubist style painting.
• You’ll also need paintbrushes, and a pencil and eraser.

Kelly Medford

Cubist paintings are a great way to stretch your kids' artistic imaginations. Kelly Medford, a plein air painter, says: “With kids, you want to encourage them with whatever they make, give them the skills to keep developing, and always challenge them. Teaching them new skills can help them to refine what they already know.”

• Choose something you have on hand. You want to practice drawing from life instead of just drawing from your imagination.
• Practice making small sketches of your subject in a sketchbook. You want to decide exactly how you will draw it for your final painting.

• As you are sketching, remember that your drawing doesn’t have to be completely realistic.
• It’s okay to overlap lines and exaggerate features. You’re just going to make it even more abstract.

• You don’t want large areas of blank space in your drawing.
• You also don’t want to create too many areas with a bunch of tiny geometric shapes.

• Use black or brown paint to create thin outlines around the shapes you made.
• Try to stick to using only a few different colors.

• These paintings make great decorations for children’s bedrooms.
• They are also good gifts for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, or Grandparents’ Day.

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cube/hd_cube.htm
• ↑ http://www.parkablogs.com/content/choosing-right-canvas-your-paintings-and-artworks
• ↑ https://willkempartschool.com/what-is-the-difference-between-oils-vs-acrylic-paints/
• ↑ https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/cubism
• ↑ http://www.pablopicasso.org/cubism.jsp
• ↑ http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1997.149.12/
• ↑ https://www.craftsy.com/post/acrylic-painting-techniques-for-beginners/
• ↑ http://emptyeasel.com/2007/10/17/what-is-cubism-an-introduction-to-the-cubist-art-movement-and-cubist-painters/
• ↑ http://artfulparent.com/2014/01/our-25-favorite-kids-art-materials.html
• ↑ http://www.theartabet.com/what-should-you-teach-a-young-child-to-draw-ages-3-to-7/

About This Article

To do a Cubist style painting, begin by choosing a subject that appeals to you. Some possibilities include a still life with flowers or a self-portrait—although Cubism is an abstract style, most Cubist painters work from life. Once you’ve decided what to paint, sketch it on the canvas in pencil. Then, look for ways to break the shapes down into more basic geometric forms. Finally, settle on a color palette for your painting—anything from shades of blue to an entire rainbow—and begin filling in the shapes you’ve created with paint. For more beginner-friendly tips, such as how to do Cubist paintings if you’re a kid, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Cubism Art Movement: History, Characteristics, Artwork

The movement is typically held to have begun around the middle of the first decade of the 20th century in Paris in the studios of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, who also collaborated together. Depending on the art historian’s interpretation, the movement lasted from around 1905 until at least the First World War, with some maintaining that it remained at the forefront of the avant-garde into the 1920s. Indeed, some Cubists persisted with the aesthetic of the movement much later, well into the 1930s.

Broadly speaking, there were two schools within the movement of Cubism: those of the Picasso/Braque collaboration and the Salon Cubists. This latter group began exhibiting extensively in Paris from around the year 1911. From the art history of the former school (that of Picasso and Braque), two stages were held to define the evolution of the Cubist movement: the analytic stage and the synthetic stage. However, other means of understanding the growth of Cubism have been suggested.

In the mid to late 19th century, innovations in art that we would now recognize as revolutionary were already underway with the advent of Impressionism, as well as other later movements, in France. The artist Paul Cézanne influence was by far the greatest modern influence on the entire Cubist movement, however. This impulse for pictorial novelty among artists persisted into the early 20th century. Yet, combined with this drive toward modernity, was the inspiration of the older artworks of cultures outside of Europe.

Some of the major artists of the Cubist movement include its pioneers, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris, Robert Delaunay, and Fernand Leger.

A few of the major artworks associated with Cubism include Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon , Guernica , and The Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso, Cubist Self-Portrait by Salvador Dali, and Portrait of Pablo Picasso by Juan Gris.

In the sections below we will outline the history of Cubism; the influence of Paul Cézanne on the Cubist artists; the characteristics of Cubist art; describe several leading artists of the movement as well as some of the primary artworks; compare the respective aesthetics of Cubism and art movements like Surrealism, Impressionism, and Futurism; and describe which art movements both influenced and were influenced by Cubist art.

History of Cubism

The exact dates of the first Cubist paintings are a matter of debate but what is certain is that around the years 1907 and 1908 they were being produced by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in Montmartre, Paris. Which of these two artists are to be called the sole originator is also uncertain, as they collaborated on their Cubist work together.

The first Cubist pictures that followed the Proto-Cubist work Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso are part of what is termed analytic Cubism. Analytic Cubism was typified by the fragmentation of the picture space, or the fracturing of the objects depicted. In this sense, the objects and the pictorial space were broken down or ‘analysed’ in such a way as to furnish the viewer with a three-dimensional view or views on the two-dimensional surface.

At the end of the analytic phase of Cubism in around 1911-2 came the so-called ‘synthetic’ phase. This synthetic Cubism was marked by the use of papier collé and collage elements. Papier collé is a type of collage where pieces of paper were affixed to the flat surface as part of the composition. Collage includes this but also refers to materials other than paper being glued to the surface.

Synthetic Cubism included works like Pablo Picasso’s Glass and a Bottle of Suze of 1912, which uses glued paper, labels and cardboard; and George Braque’s Still Life on a Table from 1913, which makes use of pasted paper as well as the more traditional pencil, gouache, charcoal, and ink.

Synthetic Cubism brought the realm of high art in touch with the low, the seemingly worthless cast off materials of everyday life. Accordingly, it brought into question the status of the art object.

The art movement of Cubism did not simply end at a convenient date for the art historian to show. But at its height of influence, its heyday could be dated from about 1910 0r 1911 until the 1920s. However, Pablo Picasso, one of its originators, returned to this style time and time again long after the 1920s when its avant-garde status was superseded. New directions in art occurred in the 1920s, such as: Futurism and Surrealism. These movements took inspiration from Cubism but pursued their own aesthetic and became the torch-bearers for new innovation.

Cézanne and Cubism

The works of Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), particularly his later works executed mostly in the environs of Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, had a profound influence on the early Cubists. Paintings like his many views of Mont Sainte-Victoire and Pyramid of Skulls from c.1901 had a formative impact on Picasso and Braque, among other Cubists.

Although usually Cézanne is called a Post-Impressionist, his oeuvre is uncategorizable. His work fused Impressionist elements with Romanticism but later on his obsessive concern with volumetric balance and ‘pure vision’ separated him from any specific movement. The singular radicalism of his art, as well as his actual style, made a deep impression on the early Cubists. In terms of his style, Cézanne has been described as a bridge or transition from Impressionism to Cubism.

The elements of Cézanne’s style that are relevant to Cubism are: his subversion of rational single-point perspective, the reduction of objects to their basic geometric shapes, his exhaustive observation of nature and objects, and his simultaneous views of a single object.

Cézanne rejected the mathematical receding perspective in place since the Renaissance and he reduced or cancelled illusionistic space. In place of this, he chose to concentrate on the possibilities of binocular vision, or the representation of objects from several visual perspectives at once. This equally would become a primary concern of Cubism and became known as simultaneity.

The simultaneous viewpoints that Cézanne worked on chimed directly with the Cubists who aimed to portray all angles of a given object.

Analytic Cubism

Analytic Cubism is characterized by fragmented objects, multiple viewpoints, muted colors, and a strong sense of line.

By 1910-12, Analytic Cubism was at its height and this phase would last until about 1912. The collaboration of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque was already bearing fruit with works like Braque’s Le Portugais (1911) and Picasso’s ‘Ma Jolie’: Woman with a Guitar or Zither (1911). These works are of similar style and use monochrome browns and greens, as well as both works’ centralisation of the deconstructed objects on the vertical plane.

In Pablo Picasso’s picture ‘Ma Jolie’ (‘ My Pretty’) there are trace indications of the figure and objects: the hands playing the instrument, the instrument itself, and rounded shapes such as that of the body of the guitar and perhaps drinking glasses in the left middle all bordered in thick lines. The context is a public café perhaps and, in this light, we can even sense that the lighter side of the picture to the right could suggest a window with its shifting patterns of reflection especially visible on the upper right.

Synthetic Cubism

Synthetic Cubism had evolved by 1912 and was to last several years. By this time the circle of Cubists began to expand, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque being joined by Juan Gris (1887-1927) in Paris. By then Cubism had become synthetic.

Characteristics of synthetic Cubism include: the use of non-traditional materials like newspaper and cardboard, collage elements, the introduction of brighter colors, and a flattening of the picture space.

The collage technique implied the gluing onto the canvas of the everyday materials hitherto not associated with visual art.

Salon Cubism

So-called Salon Cubism was a phenomenon within the movement that was established by 1910-1 and lasted until the First World War. The term ‘Salon Cubists’ was used after their exhibition at the Salon des Indépendants of 1911 in order to differentiate between their group and the ‘gallery Cubists’, or Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Picasso and Braque worked under the aegis of art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and this afforded them the luxury of developing their Cubist style in private without worrying about payment.

Notable Salon Cubists working from 1910 through 1913 included Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Juan Gris, and Marcel Duchamp. It was the frequent exhibitions of the Salon Cubists from 1910 which first publicized the new art movement in Paris and beyond.

The Salon Cubists built on the example set by Picasso and Braque but also expanded these pioneers’ vision. Whereas Picasso and Braque painted and made works that were on a small scale, in monochrome largely, the Salon Cubists introduced vibrant colors in works that were on a more monumental scale. Also, their subject-matter – far from being still life and domestic or scenes from Parisian café culture – was more ambitious. Depicting scenes more epic or allegorical subjects, these Cubists performed a fusion of the traditional classicism and the resolutely modern.

The Salon Cubists were informed theoretically also. They drew from the ideas of the French philosopher of the time, Henri Bergson, the notion of simultaneity and the fluidity of time. But they also, and perhaps primarily, were inspired by mathematics. The mathematician Maurice Princet was a friend of the group and interested them with his demonstrations of four-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface.

Prominent Salon Cubist paintings include Woman with Phlox by Albert Gleizes from 1910, Woman with a Horse by Jean Metzinger from 1911-2, and The City of Paris by Robert Delaunay from 1912.

Crystal Cubism

Characteristics of Crystal Cubism include: the emphasizing of the flatness of the picture plane and overlapping geometrical structures. These works usually use a bedrock of geometric forms onto which or into which figures, and objects are placed. In Crystal Cubism there is a clarity and an almost classical sense of order.

The high point for Crystal Cubism was between 1917 and 1920 but it emerged around the beginning of the First World War in 1914. It was practiced by most of the Salon Cubists, particularly those under contract with art dealer Léonce Rosenberg. These artists included Jean Metzinger, Juan Gris, and Albert Gleizes.

Artworks that are prime examples of Crystal Cubism are: Soldier at a Game of Chess (1914-5) by Jean Metzinger, and Portrait of Josette Gris (1916) by Juan Gris.

Jean Metzinger’s Soldier at a Game of Chess (1914-5) is a study where observed reality meets abstract geometry. Perhaps a self-portrait, the calculations of the soldier in the playing of the game are analogous to the rigorous decision-making on the part of Metzinger the artist in the construction of his composition. There are multiple perspectives here, as the chess pieces are seen side on while the chess board is impossibly raised towards us. This, combined with the overlapping planes of color lends the image a dynamic movement, as if the motive force of thought is rendered visible.

Juan Gris’s Portrait of Josette Gris (1916) is a portrait of the artist’s partner. But far from making a true likeness or a psychological portrait, Gris is concerned with mathematics and how it permeates the world. The stable, pyramidal composition lends solidity but the light and sometimes transparent geometric forms that are laid over the sitter makes for a spectral presence. Primacy is afforded to the pure form and color is relegated to a monochromatic neutrality.

Characteristics of Cubism

Characteristics of Cubism include: the broken picture plane, multiple perspectives, three-dimensional rendering, analysis and synthesis, and simultaneity.

The Broken Picture Plane

Cubism’s broken picture plane avoided the sheer surface and highly polished finish of the Academic art of the 19th century. The Cubist forms seem to alternately jut out into the world of the viewer and recede from it. There is no ‘all-over’ consistency of texture, with fragmented forms in a syntactical relationship with the gaps and omissions of space.

Multiple Perspectives

Cubism’s multiple perspectives subverted the single-point perspective that had been an artistic convention since the Renaissance. Even though earlier artists like Manet and Cézanne similarly rejected linear perspective, the Cubists did so idiosyncratically as their analysis of space and objects allowed multiple views not only of the object at once but within each plane and angle that composed it.

Three Dimensions

Cubism’s three dimensional rendering is related to its multiple perspectives. The object or figure is painted with such faceting that it, and the picture itself, seem to possess a tactile solidity for all the flux of shifting views.

Analysis and Synthesis

Cubism’s analysis and synthesis is related to the process of construction. The Cubist object is not as it appears in the visible world but it is not simply broken up (analyzed). It is broken up into parts and then reassembled (synthesized) in order to re-imagine it.

Simultaneity

Cubism’s simultaneity is related to time. The partial objects, traces of hands, analyzed heads all convey the blur of movement and request of the viewer in his own time and place to complete the holistic perception of the work. Just as these works show a convergence of different angles, shapes, and textures, so they also mark a convergence of time through the union of their various ‘moving parts’.

Cubist Artists

Some of the major Cubist painters and makers include: Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, and Juan Gris.

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was born in Spain but spent most of his working life in Paris where he, along with Georges Braque developed Cubism in the middle of the first decade of the 20th century. Picasso and Braque would subsequently be seen as the leaders of this new art movement. This was despite the fact that they operated in private under the patronage of art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler for these crucial years.

Pablo Picasso’s Cubism of his analytic phase is virtually indistinguishable from that of Georges Braque, so closely did they work together. They painted quiet studies of forms broken up and reassembled in three dimensions in shallow space, and with muted colors. But one detectable difference between the two is the modeling. Picasso’s analytic forms are broadly more sculptural and solid, while those of Braque are more airy, ethereal presences.

However, in terms of the immediate inspiration for the new style, Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon of 1907 was of singular significance. That image was itself influenced by Iberian sculpture and African masks but Picasso became the forerunner of Cubism with his sharp angles and the disorientation of scale and space.

Pablo Picasso’s Cubism evolved over time, from the early analytic Cubism through the synthetic phase towards his later combination of Cubism with irrational Surrealist elements. From his early analytic still lifes and portraits when collaborating with Georges Braque, the two artists entered the stage of synthetic Cubism and used extraneous materials in their painting. This stage, a more tactile Cubism, straddled the line between painting and sculpture as well at that between the aesthetic and the everyday.

Major works by Picasso include Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier) (1910) , The Aficionado (1912) , and Weeping Woman (1937).

Georges Braque

Georges Braque (1882-1963) spent most of his working life in Paris. With Pablo Picasso, Braque had a fundamental role in the foundation of the new Cubist style in the first decade of the 1900s.

While Picasso had a wide variety of influences, from Iberian sculpture, African art, and Paul Cézanne, Georges Braque focused largely on the aesthetic legacy of Cézanne’s multiple perspectives. In his Cubism, Braque is more calm and meditative than Picasso. Despite this, in large degree in the analytical cubism phase which was typified by an extremely close mutual influence, it is difficult to differentiate between a lot of their pictures. However, Georges Braque was more dismissive of color than Pablo Picasso until much later in his career. Another difference was that Braque was apolitical in his Cubism, concentrating mostly on still lifes containing musical instruments and drinking vessels. Picasso by contrast frequently included social and political references.

Some major works by Georges Braque include Fruit Dish (1908-9), Pitcher and Violin (1909-10), The Guitar (1909-10), and Violin and Candlestick (1910).

Jean Metzinger

Jean Metzinger (1883-1956) was living in Paris during the development of his Cubism. As an artist but also as an influential theorist, Metzinger occupied an important role in Salon Cubism, or those Cubists who exhibited frequently in Paris at the beginning of the 1910s, unlike Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

Metzinger’s theoretical studies informed a more regimented approach to his art. Especially, he made use of geometry, faceting and multiple perspectives. It is his geometric forms that placed mathematics at the center of his efforts, particularly in his Crystal Cubist phase when he distilled form into a purity of geometric shape without veering entirely into abstraction.

Jean Metzinger’s early Cubism was analytic but his forms were more mobile and muscular than those of his forebears, Picasso and Braque. Much like the analytic period of Picasso and Braque, Metzinger’s Cubism is often difficult to single out when it is compared to that of his own artistic (and theoretical) partner, Albert Gleizes.

In contrast to the Cubism of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, Jean Metzinger (and Albert Gleizes) were more influenced by artistic tradition, with the subject-matter being often classical or at least allegorical. Metzinger and Gleizes jointly published their manifesto of Cubism, Du Cubisme in 1913. In this book, the two authors outline a classical Platonic concept of the relation between form and idea: “…to discern a form is to verify a pre-existing idea…”

From about 1912, Jean Metzinger began to place equal emphasis on color and form, whereas beforehand he focused on form. In his Crystal Cubist phase, he developed overlapping and intersecting planes and furthered his purification of abstract structures. His forms were simplified by now and he abandoned what the contemporary art critic Maurice Raynal called “artifices of the palette,” meaning painterly effects.

Some major works by Jean Metzinger include: Le Goûter (1911), At the Cycle-Race Track (1912), and Soldier at a Game of Chess (1914-5).

Albert Gleizes

Much of what is said about Jean Metzinger’s Cubism can be said of Albert Gleizes (1881-1953), his close associate in Paris. Gleizes shared Metzinger’s rigorous approach to Cubism in terms of mathematics and fashioned his art accordingly, concentrating on form rather than on colour in much of his work.

Albert Gleizes deployed intersecting and overlapping shapes to produce a dynamism in his pictures reminiscent of much of Picasso’s Cubism. However, Gleizes’s art was more rationally structured than Picasso’s. Even in works with quiet subject-matter like Woman with Phlox from 1910 Gleizes achieves through his method a panoramic movement and a mobile perspective that belies the anchoring of the seated woman in the center.

In The Bathers of 1912, Albert Gleizes participates in the traditional classical theme of women bathing. Both he and Metzinger aimed to contribute to the classical tradition and even saw in their art its culmination.

In The Bathers nature serves more as a backdrop in front of which the foreground scene of the women bathing is placed. Gleizes’s figures are more complete or conventional than Metzinger’s, and the artist deploys much less angularity in the articulation of the limbs. Unlike Metzinger, Gleizes’s women have facial features, if only rudimentary: these are individual women. In The Bathers , there is also a clash between the classicising subject-matter and the background of factory chimney stacks. This juxtaposition of the traditional and the modern is a visual exemplar of the objective of the Salon Cubists: the completion of the western tradition in art. There is more a sense in this painting than that of Metzinger of the influence of history upon which the Cubist artist acts and builds. Where with Metzinger there is the absence of history, Gleizes reveals the aesthetic and historical mission of his Cubism here.

Some major works by Albert Gleizes include: Woman with Phlox (1910), The Bathers (1914), Woman with Animals (1914), Composition for “Jazz” (1915), and Woman with Black Glove (1920)

Born in Madrid, Juan Gris spent most of his artistic career in Paris where he was associated with both Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque on the one hand, and the Salon Cubists on the other. By 1906, Gris was living in Paris where he became friendly with Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Jean Metzinger, and then Pablo Picasso. Gris took up painting in 1911, after years of working as a satirical cartoonist.

When Juan Gris saw Jean Metzinger’s work Le goûter in 1911 he had an epiphany, and came to realize the centrality of mathematics, according to art historian John Richardson. This realization was to permeate the subsequent art of Gris who developed a characteristic grid structure to bring order to his representations.

The art historian Peter Brooke maintained that Juan Gris’s art had a more “rational and measurable quality” than the analytical Cubism of both Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. This is certainly true, but Gris’s Cubism evolved from a not-yet mathematical treatment of form in works like Houses in Paris (1911) in which shading and painterly effects are minimized. After his analytic phase, Gris also developed a concern for color, especially in bright harmonics, which was influenced by the Fauvism of his friend Henri Matisse.

By 1916-7, Gris had entered his Crystal Cubist period. At this time, he refined his mathematical approach, painting simple geometric forms and fusing objects and figures with their ground. His geometry was the starting point for his representations and the foundation for his union of disparate elements through a flattening of the picture space.

Some major works by Juan Gris include Houses in Paris (1911), Portrait of Picasso (1912), and Woman with a Mandolin, after Corot (1916).

Cubist Artwork

Significant cubist artwork includes Guernica by Pablo Picasso,

Guernica by Pablo Picasso

Guernica by Pablo Picasso has as its theme the suffering and death of warfare. It is an imagined scene of the experience of war by innocent civilians (with the exception of the dead soldier) who inevitably suffer the most. This picture was painted as a reaction to the bombing of the Spanish city of Guernica by German and Italian planes in April 1937 at the instigation of the Spanish nationalists during the country’s civil war.

While Guernica is a response to a particular wartime atrocity, it also symbolises a revulsion to war in general through a documenting of its horrors.

The picture shows a claustrophobic and shallow space that is seemingly as inescapable as the anguish caused by violence. A mutilated and dismembered dead soldier lies on his back in the left foreground, his severed arm holding a broken sword out of which blooms a flower that is perhaps the single note of hope in the painting. A bull that is perhaps the symbol for Spain looks out at a presumably desolate landscape to the left. The fact that its tail doubles as smoke points to a pessimism about the destiny of the country racked by civil war. There is a horse screaming in agony, a lamenting mother holding her dead child in her arms, the haunted head of a woman (which may be a surrogate for the artist, or the viewer) peering in at this scene of devastation from the window to the right, and a woman with arms outstretched enveloped in stylised flames in the shape of knives on the extreme right. Overhead, there is a bald light bulb in the shape of an eye that references either the apathy, or the powerlessness of God in the face of such pain.

The Cubist forms of broken surfaces and shapes is an apt means of representing such a subject which denotes physical mutilation and social dislocation. At the center of the picture where there is a chaos of flailing limbs and forms is the passage that is most densely and analytically Cubist, the overlapping shapes of the horse and the soldier speaking of physical injury and confusion.

However, this dense Cubism does not apply to the picture in general. On either side of the central passage, Picasso employs a more visually coherent figuration. He balances the fracturing and distortions of the piece with drawing that more faithfully relates the scene, which arouses shock and pity. It is the confluence of Cubist forms, the unnatural distortions and suffering, and the evocative monochromatic color scheme that mark this image as overwhelming. Perhaps it is the picture’s Cubism that makes it, if not visually realistic, psychologically realistic.

In terms of the significance of Guernica for the development of Cubism, the picture was painted long after the high point of Cubism in the 1900s and 1910s. It can be seen as a mature reflection and distillation of Pablo Picasso’s earlier experiments in the Cubist style. But the picture counterbalances the demands of Cubism with the extreme emotivity of the portrayal of the scene. Instead of the earlier exclusive focus on the fracturing of form and multi-perspectival vision, Picasso tempers this with an accurate account of human agony.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) by Pablo Picasso depicts five women who are workers in a brothel in Barcelona. Three of the women stare blankly and maybe aggressively out at the viewer. Although these women have facial features, Picasso neutralizes any psychological reading other than the fact that the figures are vaguely menacing.

The figure on the extreme left has features traceable to perhaps an islander of the South Seas of the Pacific and reflects the influence of Micronesian art. The heads of the two figures to her immediate right show the forms of Iberian sculpture and the influence of primitivism on Picasso at this time. Alternatively, the heads of the two figures on the right are obvious references to the forms of African masks that contrast with the pink hues of their bodies.

The overall effect is jarring for the viewer, with the sharp angles of the upraised arms, of the facial features, and of the drapery. In addition, the disjunctures of the drawing of the respective faces from different traditions as well as the arguable dehumanisation of the stylised figures (which are compared to the still life of the right foreground) are salient. This bears a relation to the Cubist concern of the succeeding years with the figure as an object to be deconstructed in the name of re-imagining the world.

The visual dislocations of the scene, the provocative poses, and the drawing of the figures and facial expressions are shocking, particularly as these traits contribute to a radical lack of pictorial unity, or self-containment, which was a traditional prerequisite for painting.

This picture’s Cubist characteristics include: its sharp angularity, uncertain perspective, and its jagged and fragmented forms. However, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon differs from outright Cubism in that the women’s bodies are not ‘analyzed’ in the Cubist sense as they have visual integrity, for all of Picasso’s distortions.

This work was the immediate springboard for the analytic Cubism of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque and has been described accordingly as the example of ‘Proto-Cubist’ art. Although Braque was initially negative in his reaction (as were most of Picasso’s coterie), he made an extensive study of it and his Cubism was formatively affected by it.

Cubist Self-Portrait by Salvador Dalí

Cubist Self-Portrait (1923) by Salvador Dalí shows the seemingly disembodied head of the artist with its gaunt angularity and prominent eyebrows. The head does not have a mouth, signaling silent observation, perhaps a self-conscious recognition of his recent study and foray into Cubism. The figure’s body is suggested subtly by the convex structure that runs down the center of the composition and flares out toward the foot of the painting.

The picture’s Cubist characteristics include the fact that the structures are ordered but fragmented as if there is a cascade of glasslike shards. This is redolent of the analytic phase of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque of a decade and a half earlier. Yet, Dalí is also making use of the collage technique of synthetic Cubism here. Accordingly, we could categorize the work as a synoptic fusion of the two canonical stages of Cubism. Therefore, the picture functions as a visual history of the art of Cubism through formal and technical rather than narrative means. Also, the basic likeness of the artist confidently places him within this esteemed and historic avant-garde movement.

As this picture dates from 1923, when Dalí was 19, it was painted long after the high point of Cubism. However, it is evidence of Cubism’s continued aesthetic appeal for ambitious artists. Notable also is the fact that Dalí glued the paperboard to a wooden panel, making the image a collage on top of a collage that suggests an infinity of technical possibilities for Cubism and for the artist’s creativity.

The Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso

The Weeping Woman (1937) by Pablo Picasso (61 x 50cm, oil on canvas, Tate Modern, London) depicts on a small scale a grieving woman with her handkerchief raised to her face. This picture was painted during the Spanish Civil War in the same year as Guernica which also foregrounded feminine anguish. Including drawings, Picasso produced 36 works based on this theme in 1936-7. Whereas in Guernica the subject is immediately pain and horror, The Weeping Woman is more a study of intimate and quiet grieving in the wake of horror. As such the work can be seen as a companion piece to Guernica , especially as Picasso made of weeping women allegorical figures for Spain. In this way, The Weeping Woman is both personal and political.

The portrait is a highly distorted rendition of Dora Maar, a Surrealist photographer, and lover and muse of Picasso at this time. The weeping figure could reference the abusive relationship of the two artists or Maar’s own oft-cited melancholic temperament.

In terms of the picture’s Cubist characteristics, it is more conventionally ordered than in outright Cubism: the scene is a readily recognizable room with a readily recognizable woman. But here are Cubist elements like the improbable angle of the wall’s paneling in the left background. The clothing of the sitter, too, shows such moments, like the crumples of the garment on the figure’s shoulders. These are exploited and rendered in typically Cubist faceting and ‘moving’ shapes, as if the woman is trembling. Also, the sharp and complex geometry of the handkerchief and the seeming mobility of the face entailed by the uncertain position of the nose are quintessentially Cubist.

Yet the image is not purely Cubist. The influence of Surrealist distortion is also evident. The non-naturalistic, one could say irrational, colors of the face (green, yellow and blue) could be read as a rational link to the sickly state of the experience of sorrow. The irrational colors Pablo Picasso uses here are conceptually appropriate for an outpouring of emotion. Surrealist also is the willful, almost automatic treatment of the face, with the eyes counter-intuitively not on the level and the nose being loosely associated with the rest of the visage.

In terms of the significance of the picture for the development of Cubism, The Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso evinces a new kind of synthesis, this time of Cubism and Surrealism. By this time, Cubism had had its heyday as a leading force in the avant-garde. Surrealism and Futurism had emerged in the 1920s as the guiding lights of modern art of the 20th century. In response to these developments, Picasso here amalgamates Cubist motifs with a Surrealist sense of extreme emotion, a certain arbitrariness of forms, and the irrationalism of the piece.

Portrait of Pablo Picasso by Juan Gris

Portrait of Pablo Picasso (1912) by Juan Gris was painted towards the end of Gris’s analytic phase. It depicts Pablo Picasso, a pioneer of the Cubist art movement, in a monumental style given that the figure of Picasso occupies most of the picture space.

Characteristics of Cubism that this work by Juan Gris shares include: the subdivision of the picture space into, in this case, regular shapes; the muted colors of the canonical works of the analytic phase; and an emphasis on the genre of portraiture. Usually, Gris painted pictures with bright and warm color under the influence of his friend Henri Matisse but for this work he uses muted and cool silver and blue. Perhaps this could refer to the calm intellect of his sitter, who helped to originate this movement that was seen by many as highly intellectual.

The picture space here is not so much fractured as strictly organized with strong structural diagonals. Also, the figure of Picasso is painted with blocked rectangles and, on the arm, cylinders. The diagonals of the setting, as if shafts of light cascading down on the figure, add up to a visual pun on Picasso being an ‘enlightened’ figure as a pioneer of Cubist art. His body’s orientation sitting back bisects at a right angle the careful geometry of the diagonal ‘shafts’ and provides a stable equilibrium and, given the bulk of the figure, a certain monumentality.

In terms of the significance for the development of Cubism, Portrait of Pablo Picasso exhibits a high point in the Salon Cubist style. The mathematical approach of Jean Metzinger’s Le Goûter , such a strong influence on Juan Gris, is evident. However, when these two images are compared, Gris shows a more regularized formalism and uses fewer variations of shape. Aside from this, his work reveals just as rigorous a geometric bent.

This picture was painted by Juan Gris towards the end of his own analytic phase. In his subsequent Crystal Cubist phase, Gris was to increasingly conflate the figure and the background. Here, however, he only makes them interpenetrate, with differentiation between figure and ground occurring through different colors and counterbalancing angles.

Cubism vs. Surrealism

Surrealism developed in the 1920s in France and by 1924 André Breton had published a self-styled manifesto for the burgeoning movement. At its core, Surrealism had the aim of liberating the unconscious mind and bringing it into contact with the external world. According to Breton, its purpose was to “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality.”

Both Cubism and Surrealism share characteristics. Both brought about innovations in the pictorial field, and both made a challenge to conventional visuality and traditional means of representation in art. Also shared is a transgression of the compartmentalization of the traditional media, for example the use of collage by the synthetic Cubists and the Surrealist amalgamation of drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film and philosophy. Two instances of an overlap are The Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso and Cubist Self-Portrait by Salvador Dalí, the first picture combining Cubist forms with Surrealist irrational colors while the second is a foray into Cubism by an artist that would become a leading light of the Surrealist movement.

Where the two movements differ is on politics and on the role of reason. Cubism was primarily an aesthetic innovation without a politically concerted revolutionary impulse. unlike Surrealism. Cubism was essentially rationalist in its deconstruction of objects and figures into forms and shapes. It also had as a goal the re-creation of perception in an organized picture-world. Cubism made conscious artistic choices that avoided the automatism or the irrationalism that Surrealism embraced. For the Cubists, there was the primary importance of the aesthetic object – each image is the culmination of its painstaking processes. On the other hand, the Surrealists (with some exceptions) prioritized the experimentation itself, with the art merely as (in the word of Breton) “artifacts” of this experimentation.

Surrealist artists include: Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, and Man Ray.

The time period for Cubism at its height is from c.1908 until the mid-1920s, while that of Surrealism was from the 1920s up until the 1950s.

Cubism vs. Impressionism

The Impressionist art movement emerged in the 1870s, with many locating the date of its first occurrence to 1872 and Impression: Sunrise by Claude Monet. At the heart of this new art was a concern with visual perception and its techniques were revolutionary and controversial.

Both Impressionism and Cubism share the objective of new ways of seeing and the making of works that portray the world beyond the conventions of the prevailing Academic art that inherited an earlier classicism. In a further rejection of tradition, both movements often equalize the subject or object painted with the ground or setting, with the result of representing a broader reality outside of any hierarchy of composition.

Both movements sought to portray movement, but their solutions were opposite: Impressionism’s vague and rapid painting opposed Cubism’s exacting analysis. The two art movements were also mostly devoted to modernity and novelty, with their modern subject-matter necessitating their novel techniques.

However, while Impressionism reveled in painterly effects that its artists tried to use to portray the changing quality of light conditions, Cubism restricted the painterly and instead focused on the structural with a precision that contrasts with the often-nebulous character of the work of the Impressionists. There is in Impressionism a spontaneity and the arbitrary application of paint that is entirely lacking in Cubism which adopted a more studied method.

Impressionist artists include Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas.

Impressionism lasted from its inception in the early 1870s towards the close of the 20th century.

Cubism vs. Futurism

Originally, Futurism emerged in Italy at the end of the first decade of the 20th century, almost as early as Cubism. 1909 saw the publication of the Manifesto of Futurism by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, a poet and leader of the movement who intended to outline the scope and ambitions of the group. Later, this phenomenon spread to other countries, notably Russia.

In both Cubism and Futurism there was the aim of making art that reflected and contributed to the rapidly changing artistic landscape. The simultaneity of certain Cubist (especially Salon Cubist) works was taken on by the Futurists as a central tenet of their admittedly diffuse style.

The Futurists were obsessed with technology and the fast-paced growth of modern industry, with Marinetti even writing: “We want no part of it, the past.” Their aims were not merely artistic but also political and had as a goal the nationalist unfettering of Italy from its onerous past. This was to be done by a depiction of exclusively modern subjects and by the deployment of technically experimental methods. In Futurism, technology was glorified and asserted as a symbol of humanity’s victory over nature.

In Futurist theory, it was maintained that objects were not separate from each other and, accordingly, Futurist artworks began to fuse and intersect objects, figures, and the background in a portrayal of the flux of modern life. This element of their art harks back to the analytic Cubist work of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque where parts of objects were rendered as fragmented forms.

In 1911, prominent Futurist Gino Severini visited Paris and was profoundly struck by the Cubist style and would adopt it for his work. Many Futurists were to follow suit and felt that Cubist structures were ideal for the relation of dynamic energy that was central to their aesthetic and theory of life. Another Futurist, Umberto Boccioni, was as influenced by Henri Bergson’s theory of the fluidity of time as the Salon Cubists like Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger were and made use of Cubist forms.

Cubism was hugely significant for the development of Futurist art and theory which adapted its forms for a different purpose. While Cubism was concerned with the re-combination of objects and figures in novel ways in order to suggest new ways of perceiving, Futurism more explicitly allied the Cubist style to a specific philosophical and political agenda that encompassed nationalism and a cult of the modern society.

Some Futurist artists include: Gino Severini, Umberto Boccioni, and Giacomo Balla.

Futurism emerged at the end of the first decade of the 20th century and exerted influence in art well into the 1930s.

What Art Movements Influenced Cubism?

The art movements that influenced Cubism were African and Iberian art, Impressionism, and Paul Cézanne.

In terms of the influence of African masks and Iberian sculpture, the Proto-Cubist work by Pablo Picasso entitled Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is most emblematic. As such, they are perhaps a more indirect influence on the starting point of Cubism but no less integral. West African Dogon, or Ngil masks from Gabon and Cameroon bear striking similarities to several faces in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon , while pre-Roman Iberian sculpture with all of its inscrutable and emotionless monumentality is similarly responsible for the painting’s impact. Sculptures from both of these traditions were witnessed in person by Picasso at the Museum of the Trocadéro in Paris in the early 1900s.

In its rebellion against the authority and aesthetic of the prevailing 19th-century Academic style of painting, Impressionism was a forerunner of Cubism. Impressionism dispensed with classical linear perspective and the closed composition. This latter component Cubism both explored and contravened along with the Impressionists while it utterly upended the conventional one-point perspective in the name of either multiple or moving viewpoints.

Paul Cézanne, who is broadly uncategorizable in the history of art of the latter 19th century, was a major influence on most of the Cubists. In particular, his idiosyncratic modulation or manipulations of form and space beyond the directly seen was instrumental and powerful for the Cubists. Also, Cézanne’s three-dimensional effects and his seemingly ‘sculptural’ rendering of objects in multiple or moving perspectives proved formative.

What Art Movements were Influenced by Cubism?

Of the many art movements that were influenced by Cubism were: Orphism, Futurism, Suprematism, and Art Deco.

Orphism was a movement that lasted from around 1912 until 1915 in France. Its use of Cubist fragmented forms was this time devoted to the capture of the often-kaleidoscopic effects of light and color. Orphism used the Cubist analytical philosophy to move further towards a purer abstraction as a result. Foremost among its practitioners were Robert and Sonia Delaunay.

In Futurism, which lasted from 1909 until the 1930s, also there was the adoption of the Cubist deconstruction of forms and objects in order to relate and exemplify, rather than describe the flux and speed of modern and usually modern life. Prime Futurists, all under the sway of Cubist analysis, were Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini.

Suprematism lasted from 1913 until around 1924 when Stalinist restrictions began to make themselves felt on the freedom of artistic expression in Russia. It developed a more fundamental geometry than most Cubism but owes a debt to Crystal Cubism most of all. Its founder, Kasimir Malevich wrote of the “supremacy of pure artistic feeling” over the object and so differentiated himself from the purely analytic Cubism of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque while seeking a similar alteration to preconceptions about the perception of reality. Major Suprematists included: Kasimir Malevich, Liubov Popova, and Olga Rozanova.

Art Deco , which lasted from the 1910s until the Second World War, embraced visual art, architecture, design. Its emphasis was on craftmanship with opulent materials but made use of Cubist-inspired basic geometric forms. Similar to early Cubism, Art Deco fused syncretic influences, from African to Oceanic art. Eugène Grasset, a major proponent of Art Deco, asserted the importance of a pared-back geometry and emphasized the square and the circle as fundamental to composition. This is directly a result of the study of late Cézanne and Cubism. Among the leading Art Deco artists and designers were the Christofle crystal firm, the jeweler Louis Cartier, and the interior designer René Lalique.

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10 Iconic Cubist Artworks and Their Artists

Cubism art and its geometric forms emerged in 1907-08 and remained extremely influential for 20th-century art. Find out more about its most famous artists and masterpieces.

Cubism art was a modern movement that is known today as the most influential period in 20th-century art . It has also inspired subsequent styles in architecture and literature. It is known for its deconstructed, geometric representations and breakdowns of spatial relativity. Developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque among others, Cubism drew on post-impressionist art, and particularly the works of Paul Cézanne, which challenged traditional notions of perspective and form. Below are 10 iconic cubist works and the artists who produced them. 

Proto Cubism Art 

Proto-Cubism is the introductory phase of Cubism that began in 1906. This period reflects the experimentation and influences that resulted in geometric shapes and a more muted color palette in sharp contrast to the preceding Fauvist and post-impressionis t movements.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) by Pablo Picasso 

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, printmaker, sculptor, and ceramicist who is known as one of the most prolific influences on 20th-century art. He, along with Georges Braque, founded the Cubism movement in the early 1900s. However, he also made significant contributions to other movements including Expressionism and Surrealism . His work was known for its angular shapes and challenging traditional perspectives.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon depicts five nude women in a brothel in Barcelona. The piece is rendered in muted, paneled block colors. All the figures stand to confront the viewer, with slightly disconcerting facial expressions. Their bodies are angular and disjointed, standing as if they are posing for the viewer. Below them sits a pile of fruit posed for a still life. The piece is one of the most famous examples of Cubism’s divergence from traditional aesthetics.

Houses at L’Estaque (1908) by Georges Braque

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Georges Braque was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman and sculptor who was a leading artist in both the Fauvism and Cubism movements. He was closely associated with Pablo Picasso during early Cubism and remained loyal to the movement throughout the rest of his career despite changing his style and color use. His most famous work is characterized by bold coloration and sharp, defined angles. 

Houses at L’Estaque reflects the transition from post-impressionism into Proto-Cubism. The viewer can see the influence of Paul Cézanne in the uniform brushstrokes and thick paint application. However, Braque incorporated elements of cubist abstraction by removing the horizon line and playing with perspective. The houses are fragmented, with inconsistent shadows and a background that blends in with the objects.

Analytical Cubism 

Analytical Cubism in the early phase of Cubism, beginning in 1908 and ending around 1912. It is characterized by the deconstructed representations of objects with contradictory shadows and planes, which play with traditional notions of perspective. It also featured the restricted color palette of Proto-Cubism.

Violin and Candlestick (1910) by Georges Braque 

Violin and Candlestick depicts an abstracted violin and candlestick still life. It is composed on a grid with deconstructed elements that form a single composition, allowing the viewer to draw their interpretation of the piece. It is rendered in muted tones of brown, grey and black, with juxtaposing shadows and a flattened perspective. It consists mainly of flat, horizontal brush strokes and sharp outlines. 

I and the Village (1911) by Marc Chagall 

Marc Chagall was a Russian-French painter and printmaker who used dream iconography and emotive expression in his work. His work predated the imagery of Surrealism and used poetic and personal associations rather than traditional artistic representations. He worked in several different mediums throughout his career and studied under a stained-glass maker which led to him to take up its craftsmanship.

I and the Village depicts an autobiographical scene from Chagall’s childhood in Russia. It portrays a surreal, dream-like setting with folk symbols and elements from the town of Vitebsk, where Chagall grew up. The piece is thus highly emotional and focuses on several associations with the artist’s significant memories. It has intersecting, geometric panels with blended colors, confusing the perspective and disorienting the viewer. 

Tea Time (1911) by Jean Metzinger 

Jean Metzinger was a French artist and writer who wrote the leading theoretical work on Cubism with fellow artist Albert Gleizes . He worked in the Fauvist and Divisionist styles in the early 1900s, utilizing some of their elements in his cubist works including bold colors and defined outlines. He was also influenced by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, who he met when he moved to Paris to pursue a career as an artist. 

Tea Time represents Metzinger’s hybridization of classical art with modernism. It is a portrait of a woman having tea in a characteristic cubist composition. It resembles classical and Renaissance bust portraiture but has a modern, abstracted figure and elements of spatial distortion. The woman’s body and the teacup are both deconstructed, featuring plays on light, shadow and perspective. The color scheme is muted, with elements of red and green blended into it.

Synthetic Cubism

Synthetic Cubism is the later period of Cubism spanning between 1912 and 1914. While the precedent Analytical Cubism period was focused on fragmenting objects, Synthetic Cubism emphasized experimentation with textures, flattened perspective and brighter colors.

Portrait of Pablo Picasso (1912) by Juan Gris

Juan Gris was a Spanish painter and a leading member of the Cubism movement. He was part of the 20th-century avant-garde, working alongside Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Henri Matisse in Paris. He also designed ballet sets for the art critic and founder of the ‘Ballets Russes’ Sergei Diaghilev. His painting was known for its rich colors, sharp forms and reformation of spatial perspective. 

Portrait of Pablo Picasso represents Gris’ homage to his artistic mentor, Pablo Picasso. The piece is reminiscent of Analytic Cubism works, with spatial deconstruction and paradoxical angles. However, it also features a more structured geometric composition, with clear color planes and pops of color. The background angles fade into those of Picasso’s face, flattening the piece and blending the subject with the background. 

Guitar (1913) by Pablo Picasso

Guitar perfectly represents the shift between Analytical Cubism and Synthetic Cubism. The piece is a collage combined with drawn elements, made up of paper and newspaper clippings, adding varying degrees of depth and texture. It portrays disjointed and asymmetric parts of a guitar, recognizable only by the central shape and circle. Its mainly beige, black and white color scheme is contrasted by a bright blue background, emphasizing the bold colors of Synthetic Cubism. 

The Sunblind (1914) by Juan Gris 

The Sunblind portrays a closed blind partially covered by a wooden table. It is a charcoal and chalk composition with collage elements, adding in textures typical of a Synthetic Cubism piece. Gris uses perspective and size distortions between the table and the blind to add an element of confusion. The bright blue color both contracts against and frames the central table, adding textural variation and an asymmetrical balance. 

Later Work with Cubism Art 

While Cubism’s innovation peaked between 1908-1914, the movement had a monumental impact on modern art. It appeared throughout the 20th-century in European art and had a considerable impact on Japanese and Chinese art between 1910 and 1930. 

Cubist Self-Portrait (1926) by Salvador Dalí 

Salvador Dalí was a Spanish artist who was closely linked to Surrealism. His work is some of the most notable and recognizable of the movement, and he remains one of its most prominent contributors. His art is known for its precision and is characterized by dreamlike imagery, Catalonian landscapes and bizarre imagery. However, despite his primary interest with Surrealism, Dalí also experimented with the Dadaism and Cubism movements during the first half of the 20th century.

Cubist Self-Portrait exemplifies the work done in Dalí’s cubist phase between 1922-23 and 1928. He was influenced by the works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque and experimented with other outside influences during the time that he made cubist works. His self-portrait exemplifies these combined influences. It has an African style mask at its center, surrounded by collaged elements typical of Synthetic Cubism, and featuring the muted color palette of Analytical Cubism. 

Guernica (1937) by Pablo Picasso

Guernica is both one of Picasso’s most famous works and is renowned as one of the most prolific anti-war artworks in modern history. The piece was done in response to the 1937 bombing of Guernica, a Basque town in Northern Spain, by Fascist Italian and Nazi German forces. It depicts a group of animals and people suffering at the hands of wartime violence, many of which are dismembered. It is rendered in a monochrome color scheme, with thin outlines and geometric block shapes. 

Everything You Need to Know about Cubism

By Charlotte Davis BA Art History Charlotte is a contributing writer from Portland, Oregon now based in London, England. I’m an art historian with extensive knowledge in art history, classics, ancient art and archaeology.

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If you are into painting or even the visual arts in any way, then you are sure to know a bit about cubism. Even if you do not know much about cubism, you could venture a guess and say that cubism involves painting that uses geometric shapes and you would not be wrong. Cubism is an art movement that involved the painting of various familiar subjects depicting it from various points of view using geometric shapes. It was something that came about when Pablo Picasso started using this form of painting to make his profound and impactful paintings. It is not comparable to beautiful and soft impressionism but it does have a stark and interesting beauty all its own. It can be said that cubism can be somewhat abstract and you could include it in your eye catching abstract painting ideas for you to try .

If you are really interested in finding out more about painting styles in general, it would be good for you to explore the many styles of painting and know more about them. The thing is that even if a particular style of painting is not up to your personal choice, you cannot deny the beauty and charm that it holds. Often it has been seen that people who are into art like paintings show a leaning towards a particular school of thought depending on their mood. For example, someone in the throes of first love would be more inclined towards surrealism, as the world seems brighter and better it is to their eyes.

Cubism is a style of painting that could probably appeal to someone who is likely to be drawn more towards something that is not obvious. But while there are other styles of painting that are subtle, the difference is that cubism is about angles and shapes that are more every day when viewed as parts. But when you look at it from the holistic point of view, it depicts something else. The sum and the parts tell a story each and also show a story when taken together.

This form of painting often strives to show the object of the painting from split moods and points of view. Cubism can be sometimes a bit difficult to understand and will need a bit of focus and concentration to get it right. It is not art that hits you directly at least at first. Though once a person is into cubism and appreciates what it is trying to say, then figuring out the whole object of the painting as well as the parts becomes easier.

It can take something as simple as a guitar and make it look very different and interesting but without compromising the integrity of the object. Even something as innocent and cute as a teddy bear can be shown with a different point of view and composed of geometrical shapes that will have you wondering what the artist was thinking when he or she painted this one. While in some paintings of the cubist style, the object that is painted would be quite simple to figure out but in others it will take some work.

Sometimes, when you look at cubism, then  you realize that the parts make the whole but it is not always a neat arrangement as is depicted in more realistic paintings. There  is a special type of talent and mindset not to mention creative thinking to paint captivating cubism art.

We are sure that you will also find cubism art and paintings captivating once you get a grip of the idea behind it.

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The Art Teacher

Art Lesson Ideas, Plans, Free Resources, Project Plans, and Schemes of Work. An 'outstanding' art teacher in Greater Manchester. Teaching KS3 and KS4 art and design.

Category: KS3 Art & Design Activities

Ks3 mini art & photography project.

This Art & Photography project is fairly simple and quick to teach, with effective photographic final pieces for students. It doesn’t require any complex understanding of photographic techniques (yay) and it was designed as a taster of GCSE Photography for my Year 9 (KS3) classes. Students created some brilliant, woven photograph pieces as their final […]

KS3 Art Textiles Project – Sweet Stitches

This simple textiles art project is ideal for teaching at KS3 as it is really short but engages students by giving them lots of choice in their work. Students love the bright colours, the different shaped stitches and, of course… the sweet, sugary subject! Get art lesson resources emailed straight to you: I teach this […]

KS3 Clay Project – Coil Bowls

This is a super simple but REALLY effective clay project that my students love. I teach this clay coil bowl project to my Year 8 students and their results are lovely – and can take their plates home with them when they’re finished. The project is inspired by the coiling techniques and shapes used in […]

KS3 Art Project: Painting Patterns

After teaching a dry media pattern design project previously, I altered this pattern design scheme of work to focus more on colour theory and develop students’ painting skills. This is the first year I have taught the project this way, and I am so chuffed with the results! Get this full pattern painting project on […]

KS3 Easy 3D Pop Art Sculpture Project

I designed this 3D Pop Art project as a fun way to end the summer term with my students. It is inspired by different Pop Art ideas and I combined a few elements of art (including colour theory) to create this full scheme of work. I taught it with Year 7 (11-12yrs) for around 6 […]

KS3 Easy Clay Project: Textured Vessels

This simple clay art project is one of my favourites to teach towards the end of the year; it is engaging and dead easy to teach, with really effective outcomes for students! It’s also great for them to be able to take some 3D ceramic artwork home with them at the end of the year. […]

KS3 Oil Pastel Cubism Art Project

I’m really excited to share this easy oil pastel art project because I have only just finished teaching it and the students have created some really wonderful work – I love their final pieces! (Although I do feel like I’m getting a bit obsessed with teaching Cubist inspired art lessons 😂 ) I was struggling […]

KS3 Art Project – 3D Design and Build

This 3D art project is great because it engages boys, uses minimal materials (mainly just paper and card), introduces new equipment and materials AND it can be really easily adapted. I teach this Design and Build architecture project every year because it is so much fun (and not just for the students 😂 ). Once […]

KS3 Art – Cubism Home Learning Project

It sounds bad to say but “I’m making this project up as I go along” 😂  as in, it’s not finished yet! I’m creating the home learning Cubism Scheme of Work for my KS3 (Year 9) classes and I am going to add lessons weekly depending on how my students respond to it and how […]

KS3 Art – Op Art Home Learning Project

I have made this home learning KS3 Op Art project for our Year 7 students to work on during lockdown, but it could easily be used for Year 8 or Year 9 (or maybe even art cover lessons?). I have been teaching these Op Art lessons online via Google Classroom. I have designed this Op […]

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