Cubism -- How it Shapes

Cubism -- How it shapes the art of today, how it creates the shape of my art today

According to the popular Internet art encyclopedia, 'Artcyclopedia,' the Cubist movement in art developed between the years of 1908 and 1912, amongst a small colony of European artists. The early Cubist's main influences were said to have been Tribal Art, as prefigured in the works of the post-impressionist Paul Cezanne. (Artcyclopedia, 2005) Unlike these earlier artist's works, however, which still had recognizable, realistic forms, in Cubist paintings the subject matter was broken up, analyzed by the painter, and then reassembled in an abstracted form of shapes and stark designs.

There are two distinct Cubist styles. The first movement in Cubism was known as Analytical Cubism. Analytical Cubism used geometrical forms and very dull colors, often blacks and whites. The second phase, known as Synthetic Cubism, used more decorative shapes, stencilling, collage, and brighter colors The Spanish painter Pablo Picasso and the French painter Georges Braque initiated the synthetic Cubist part of the movement. They said they were following the advice of Paul Cezanne, who said artists should treat nature "in terms of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone." (ArtLex, 2005) But although the shapes were simply, they were used in striking ways, through design, to create startling images. What was central to Cubism was "the juxtaposition or combination, in a single painting, of radically different and discontinuous perspective schemas or viewpoints." (Cottington, p.41) Everything is simple in line in Cubism, yet striking in design.

This philosophy is one of the reasons that Cubism still exerts a profound influence in the illustrator's art, even though according to ArtLex, its influence has waned somewhat in painting in the 20th century. Cubism is simple and clear-cut in its use of shapes and colors, yet by reducing images to their most essential elements; an eye-catching design can be created for the gazer. In fact, during the early Cubist Braque and Picasso brought recognizable used many illustrative features in their paintings. "During their stay in Ceret, from 1911 to 1913, these artists "used letters, fragments of words, musical notes, then significant material elements," in creating collages and works of art, even " sand or sawdust which create relief...and to make the picture more physically an object." (Art Lex, 2005) This creating of a crafted material, rather than a self-consciously object of 'high art' was also essential to the movement. (Antliff & Leighton, p.4)

The first Cubist painting is largely considered to be by Pablo Picasso's first, formative abstract work entitled " Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," a 1907 oil on canvas, that was influenced not only by the paintings by Paul Cezanne and by the fauvists, but also by real African sculptures. The subjects of this picture were not 'good' women of the city of Avignon, but prostitutes of a street named Avignon. This choice of subject matter also marked a radical break of Picasso with what was considered to be appropriate subjects for art. "Little in their previous acquaintance either with Picasso's painting or that of other aesthetically radical artists in Paris in 1907 could have prepared those who viewed 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' that year for the experience." (Cottington, p. 4) Braque was to follow with an equally disjointed yet less controversial -- in subject -- breaking down of the elements of a "Violin and Candlestick" in 1910, and Picasso was subject to the same breaking-down as a subject of another Cubist's painting, Gris, in "Portrait of Picasso." 1912.

Douglas Cooper notes in his book, The Cubist Epoch, that the one common aspect of the many different artists whose work came to characterize the movement as that almost all of these artists were controversial in their day, given the harsh quality of Cubist art, particularly when rendering the human form. Yet these artists were not above reproach, even by other, liberal artists. David Cottington has noted that many criticized the 'Cubist salons' for shutting women out of the movement, except as pictorial subjects. (Cottington, p.17) Yet many have stressed the value to women and outsiders of the Cubists' responses to anti-Enlightenment philosophies, the relation of Cubist art to the "classical" art of previous eras.

This anti-classical stance is where I see my own illustrative art moving today. Today, many critics still do not see illustration or graphic novels as true art, just as African masks and stylized figures were not seen as art during Picasso's day. But what is considered great art, and an artistic medium is always changing. Just as Picasso used sand in his early works to create material art, I am also striving to find what style of illustration I will be focusing on over the course of my career and what drawing is the most appropriate way of rendering my vision in a simple, clear, yet forceful way, as did the Cubists at the beginning of the 20th century.