The Cubist and Pablo Picasso movement
Artistic movements are the trends and revolutions that transform art according to the context and the time when a work occurs.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the world lived great changes in the technological and industrial field also. The large -scale application of the advances of the industrial revolution and inventions such as telephone, radio and electricity transformed the daily life of people in most countries. Russia lived moments of anguish product of the 1905 revolution against its Tsar Nicolás II and the War against Japan;Albert Einstein formulated the theory of relativity, which forever changed the way of thinking of the human being;Australia obtained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1901;In 1903, in North Carolina, the Wright brothers managed to make the first flight of what was considered the precursor of current aircraft. In Europe the "Triple Entente" was formed in 1907, a strategic union between France, Great Britain and Russia, as a defense tactics against the growing German empire in an eventual war. And in 1908 Pablo Picasso founded in Paris what is currently known as "Cubism", a revolutionary movement that would forever mark art history.
Picasso was born in Malaga, but he spent most of his artistic and personal life in France. After World War II he returned to Paris to meet his friends and visitors. Later in his life he moved inland among the hills around Vallauris. Attracted by the potteries of the place and by their spacious workshops, they required them to develop their art (Fabre, 1963). Paul was characterized by his eagerness to constantly reinvent art and not stick to traditional values and beliefs (Fluegel, 1980). Under this premise, the Spanish painter created Cubism.
Cubism appears as an alternative to art that had been transcending until that time. The great artists of that time, that most gathered in Paris, such as von Dongen, Modigliani or Brancusi, came to understand that times of change were lived and that art demands a new language. This change corresponded to the one also lived in society. Picasso, through Cubism sought to reach that new language. The Andalusian artist wanted to do works based on geometric figures and relative abstraction in terms of composition and dimensions. (Fabre, 1963)
In literature it is usually read that there is a conceptual division in Cubism. This is divided into the analytical and synthetic. The analytical is the one who seeks to crumble and explain a phenomenon through a work, while the synthetic focuses on summarizing or synthesizing an event or manifestation through an artistic product. (Fabre, 1963)
Another of the exponents of Cubism, who had a great influence on this movement was Georges Braque. This French artist offers the “Automne Hall” six landscapes of L’Steque in the style of Paul Cézanne, but are considered very abstract and are fully rejected. It seemed that it had been Matisse, a member of the Court, who said that Braque was "making small cubes", referring for the first time to the characteristic style of Cubism, which was a product of the experiments of Braque and Picasso, which were frequented in Paris. The two can be considered as the creators of Cubism. In a comment published in the magazine Gil Blas, it was mentioned that Braque reduces everything, places, figures and houses to geometric and cubes schemes. (Fluegel, 1980)
During the Cubist years, the importance of the perception of the human eye decreased and predominated the elements such as the circle of a guitar, a bottle, and glass fragment or even the fruits of the fruits. These objects attracted more attention, and were based on geometric figures, which were the cornerstone of the cubist movement. (Penrose, 1967).
Although according to official sources, the movement began in 1908 or subsequently, Picasso from before already performed works of art with Cubist characteristics. An example of this is “Ladies on Aviñón Street.”In this painting, made in 1907, you can see five women painted in a relatively abstract way, with different color tones (mostly light), and with visible cubic figures. The picture wants to represent a reality of that period (prostitution in southern France), and achieves it using an artistic concept that is far from the methods used until then to represent reality. This artistic language is the one proposed by Picasso through Cubism.
Another representative work of Cubism, is the "girl with mandolina" of Picasso, made of at the beginning of 1910. This picture presents a woman playing a mandolin. It is also composed of geometric figures, mostly square and cubic. It has a shadow -colored tone and light in the center, which is the girl’s body. The two halves of this painting tell us the fight of the moment: three dimensions are observed in the lower part, while the high is completely flat. A contrast in the composition, which symbolizes the changes that Cubism brought.
The cubist movement is then an avant -garde phenomenon of the twentieth century, which contributed relevant changes in the artistic world. Picasso, Braque and other Cubist artists such as Robert Delaunay and Louis Marcussis, emphasized geometric elements and cubic figures to compose their works. Something that until before that time was not used to attract the attention of the public.(Fabre, 1963)
References
- Fabre, j. P. (1963). Picasso. Polygraph editions.
- Fluegel, j. (1980). Pablo Picasso: retrospective. Eds. Polygraphy.
- Penrose, r. (1967). The Eye of Picasso. Mentor.
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