Cubism Movement - Essay Example

Order 325612 Thesis ment: To what heights the flights of imaginations take the Cubism artists, once they found the new horizons in the field of art? 325612 Topic: Write a unified (= relating to one topic or thesis) essay discussing Cubism. Introduction: The artists who believe that they should copy nature and who proclaim that they should not do so, are alternative beats of the same heart. An artist’s heart and strokes of the brush always respond and move in tandem with the rhythms of nature, knowingly or unknowingly. No individual is close to the nature as the artists and singers are! It’s all about perception, how an artist views the scenic beauty of Nature and its working! For example, one can say that why the ocean and the moon struggle to reach each other, because the distance between them is beyond the reach of the waves howsoever powerful and big they may be! Whatever are the efforts of the moon to come down, he can never reach the ocean. Let’s us say this is the perspective of one artist. The other may view the same scenic beauty of the struggle between the moon and the ocean, with a different perspective. The empty space between the ocean and the moon is in fact not empty as there is nothing like emptiness in the cosmos! The space itself is the unifying factor! So, the new visual art style born and developed between 1907 and 1914, Cubism, is not the rebuttal of the nature as is popularly believed by the art critics. It is just another thing! Braque and Picasso opted to embrace and emphasize the two-dimensionality of canvas. They fractured and reduced the objects and realigned them within shallow, relief-like space with multiple and contracting vantage points. To what heights the flights of imaginations take the Cubism artists, once they found the new horizon in the field of art? “Within the first two decades of the 20th century, a new art movement began that was unlike any other—Cubism. Started by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, most Cubist works are immediately recognizable due to their flattened, nearly two-dimensional appearance; an inclusion of geometric angles, lines, and shapes; and a fairly neutral color palette”(What is…).Imagination and influence of other artists was contagious and spread like the wild-fire! Artists were waiting in the wings, as if to tread the path of this novel mode of art. Additions and subtractions were made to the original conception of Cubism. The great artist Picasso was highly influenced by the works of Paul Cezanne and Jean Dominique. He experimented with ambiguous silhouettes. Next to catch his imagination was primitive and African art. Artists began to don the gowns of mathematicians. Cezanne advised the artists to treat nature in terms of the cylinder, cone and the sphere. Picasso and Braque did further improvements. After conceiving the totality of the subject, they fragmented and analyzed and then reassembled it in an abstract form. They were criticized and appreciated for their extraordinary experiments—that they abandoned proportions, continuity of life samples and organic integrity and material objects. Critics said that the works looked like a field of broken glass. Notwithstanding the criticism and differences in opinions, Cubism thrived. “The Cubist emphasized a flat, two-dimensional surface and rejected the idea that art should imitate nature, refusing traditional techniques such as perspective, foreshortening, modeling, and chiaroscuro. The movement is considered to have its roots in the work of Post-Impressionist, Paul Cezanne. It also took from African tribal art, reducing everything to cubes and other geometrical forms. Cubist artists depicted drastically fragmented objects, sometimes showing multiple sides simultaneously. Cubism was the forerunner of abstract art.” (Cubism…) “There were three phases in the development of Cubism: Facet Cubism, Analytic Cubism, and Synthetic Cubism. Color continued to occupy the dominant place in the Cubism works of art…. ...Color is reduced to a gray-tan cameo, applied uniformly in small brushstrokes creating vibrations of light. The interpenetration of the forms lends these paintings a previously unknown aspect of continuity and density.” (ArtLex….)These artists brought life into frivolous objects like letters, fragment of words, musical notes, sand and sawdust that create relief. These additions made the picture more physically an object. For the experiment-fancy Picasso and Braque, there was no stopping. In 1911, these scientists of art took to simulated textures, shadows and modern stenciled typography. A depersonalized style was adopted for conceptual planes and figures and objects and they were developed accordingly. They “reduced their subjects to a series of overlapping planes and facets in browns, grays, and blacks. Their similar compositions are broken into planes with open edges sliding into each other with no depth. The monochromatic color is applied uniformly in small brush strokes creating vibrations of lights. Sand or sawdust applied with the paint created relief and made the picture more physically an object.” (ArtLex….) Their favorite motifs were musical instruments, glasses, pictures, bottles, playing cards, newspapers and the human face and figure. Landscapes were relegated to the background. Can it be seen as the influence of the materialistic civilization and the changed lifestyles of the people around them? The new wave of cultural trends was brewing in the society. Cubism was in for a very tough time after the World War II. Many forms of art challenged its seat on the pedestal of ivory tower. Picasso’s quest to “fool the mind’s eye” was overtaken by other artists. But the influence of Cubism remains on the subsequent art forms in one way or the other. Perhaps the law of divine retribution was working against Cubism. If Cubism challenged Nature not very long ago, why Cubism can not meet the same fate, by other forms of Art? Cubism, however, left deep impact on the twentieth art revolution—it rather initiated it! Some of the famous art works of Cubism were: Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Head of a Horse, 1914 / 1976, bronze, dark patina, 48 x 49 x 39.5 cm, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris. Albert Gleizes (French, 1881-1953), Portrait of Jacques Nayral, 1911, oil on canvas, 161.9 x 114.0 cm, Tate Gallery, London. Fernand Léger, The Wedding, 1911, oil on canvas, 257 x 206 cm, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris. Pablo Picasso (born Pablo Ruiz-Picasso) (Spanish, 1881-1973), Bust of a Woman, 1907, oil on canvas, 66 x 59 cm, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris. Pablo Picasso, Three Women, oil on canvas, 79 x 73 inches (200 x 185 cm), Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Pablo Picasso, A Woman Sitting in a Chair, 1910, oil on canvas, 100 x 73 cm, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris. Pablo Picasso, Bottle of Vieux Marc, Glass, Guitar and Newspaper, 1913, collage and pen and ink on blue paper, 46.7 x 62.5 cm, Tate Gallery, London. The above are some of the representative samples, and the listing is endless. Conclusion: “Nowadays, Cubism seems like just another facet of abstract art, but in reality, it came first—and it directly influenced most of the abstract art of the 20th century. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to imagine the 20th century without Cubism, Picasso and the others. . It would be a very different world of art than the one we know.”(What is….) I am not prepared to agree that the Cubism artists moved away from the Nature. Rather they began to experiment with the different perspectives and dimensions of Nature. An artist is the child of Nature. The beauty and essence of Nature is ingrained in every stroke of his brush. Howsoever powerful may be the waves of the ocean—their essential nature is mere water! Similarly, whatever are the conscious and intended efforts of the artists-their works can not totally disassociate from Nature! Cubism however became the world-wide phenomenon, the known artists of every country took to this form, exceed and improved upon the various forms of Cubism, indigenous factors were added to it, and it took a full circle, until World War II, when other forms of art challenged its superiority. ********** Works Cited: ArtLex on CubismCubism and cubists… - Cached – Retrieved on October 8, 2009 Cubism Art - Artists, Artworks and BiographiesCubism: Cached – Retrieved on October 8, 2009 What is Cubism? An Introduction to the Cubist Art Movement and... Retrieved on October 8, 2009 . Read More