Cubism

Cubism was one of the most influential visual art styles of the early twentieth century. It was created by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973) and Georges Braque (French, 1882–1963) in Paris between 1907 and 1914.  Cubist painters felt that art should not resemble nature or life in it's true form.  Cubism was no model of traditional techniques used for painting such as perspective and three dimensionality.  Cubist paintings often looked like something you would cut out of a magazine and place back together but in a non traditional sense to where you could hardly recognize what the image was originally. Cubism paved the way for geometric abstract art by putting a completely different emphasis on perspective, in renaissance art especially, perspective was what made a flat image look like real life. Cubists artists wanted nothing of the sort they made their images look completely dismembered.  

Homage to Picasso by John Nolan 

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Pablo Picasso 1971 Getty Images

In the four decades from 1870-1910, western society witnessed more technological progress than in the previous four centuries. During this period, inventions such as photography, cinematography, sound recording, the telephone, the motor car and the airplane were the start of a new age. The problem for artists at this time was how to reflect the modernity of the era using previously trusted traditions that had served art for the last four centuries. Photography had begun to replace painting as the tool for documenting the age and for artists to sit illustrating cars, planes and images of the new technologies was not exactly inventive. Artists needed a more radical approach that expanded the possibilities of art in the same way that technology was extending the boundaries of communication and travel. Picasso and Braque were the ones to get people to look at art in a new way.

Braque, Photographed by Arnold Newman 1956

Purple tablecloth, Braque