A-Z: Cubism
Art History Glossary
Cubism
| ˈkyo͞oˌbizəm | noun |
Cubism was an art movement started in the early twentieth century by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, inspired largely by African sculpture and the paintings of Paul Cézanne. Instead of depicting a subject from a single perspective, Cubist artists imagine it from multiple perspectives simultaneously.
Example: Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon represents a chapter break in art history as one of the first Cubist paintings. The title is a bit of a euphemism: the painting depicts five nude prostitutes from a brothel on Carrer d’Avinyó in Barcelona, Spain. Picasso painted them broken into multiple, conflicting picture planes and from different perspectives at the same time. The resulting composition stunned viewers and helped usher in the era of modern art. Picasso would later deny the influence of African art on the painting. “There is nothing of art nègre in the Demoiselles d’Avignon,” he insisted. However, he also recounted being inspired by African masks in Paris’ Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro. “The masks weren’t like other kinds of sculpture. Not at all. They were magical things,” Picasso wrote. “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon must have come to me that day.”
See appropriation, modernism, perspective.
