Lecture topic: Western civilization in the 1st half of the 20th century. Art and architecture. Part 1.

There is a lot of material, so I’ll break the topic into several posts, it’s very voluminous and there are a lot of graphics, it’s inconvenient to read.

The main trends in art and culture between the I and II World Wars:

Dadaism, or Dada - modernist movement in literature, fine arts, theater and cinema. Originated during World War I V neutral Switzerland, in Zurich. Existed from 1916 to 1922.

Dadaism most clearly expressed in separate scandalous antics - fence scribbles (the roots of modern graffiti), pseudo-drawings that make no sense, combinations of random objects. French in the 1920s Dadaism merged with surrealism, and in Germany - with expressionism.

Origin of the term

Founder of the current poet Tristan Tzara found a word in the dictionary "Yes Yes". “In the language of the Negro tribe Kru,” Tzara wrote in a manifesto of 1918, “it means the tail of a sacred cow, in some areas of Italy this is the name of the mother, it can be the designation of a wooden horse for children, a wet nurse, a double statement in Russian and Romanian. It could to be a reproduction of incoherent infantile babble. In any case, something completely meaningless, which from now on has become the most successful name for the whole trend. "

Characteristic

Dadaism arose as a reaction to the consequences World War I, the cruelty of which, according to Dadaists, emphasized meaninglessness of existence. Rationalism and logic were declared to be one of the main culprits of devastating wars and conflicts. Based on this, Dadaists(in particular, A. Breton) believed that the modern European culture must be destroyed by decay of art(in particular, artistic word and language).

main idea Dadaism was consistent destruction of any kind of aesthetics. Dadaists proclaimed: "The Dadaists are nothing, nothing, nothing, surely they will achieve nothing, nothing, nothing."

Basic Principles Yes Yes there were irrationality, denial of recognized canons and standards in art, cynicism, disillusionment and lack of system. It is believed that Dadaism was the forerunner surrealism which largely determined its ideology and methods.

Mainly Dadaism presented in literature, but also received some reflection in the cinema.

Representatives of Dadaism

Hans Arp (1886-1966), Germany, Switzerland and France
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), France
Max Ernst (Max Ernst, 1891-1976), Germany and USA
Otto Freundlich (1878-1943), Germany, France
Philippe Soupault (1897-1990), France
Tristan Tzara (1896-1963), France
Hugo Ball (1886-1927), Germany
Raoul Hausmann (1886-1971), Germany
Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), Germany

Cubism(French Cubisme) - avant-garde direction in the visual arts, primarily in painting, which originated at the beginning of the 20th century and is characterized by the use of emphatically geometrized conditional forms, the desire to "split" real objects into stereometric primitives.

The emergence of cubism

emergence cubism traditionally dated 1906-1907 and associated with creativity Pablo Picasso And Georges Braque. Term "cubism" appeared in 1908, after the art critic Louis Vaucelle named new paintings Marriage by "cubic quirks" (fr. bizarreries cubiques).

Since 1912 in cubism a new branch is born, which art critics called "synthetic cubism". A simple statement of the main goals and principles cubism it is rather difficult to give; in painting can be distinguished three phase this direction, reflecting different aesthetic concepts, and consider each separately: Cezanne (1907-1909), analytical(1909-1912) and synthetic (1913-1914) cubism.

Major achievements

The most famous cubist works of the early 20th century were paintings Picasso "Girls of Avignon", "Guitar", works by artists such as Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp, sculptures Alexandra Archipenko and etc. Cubism developed outside of France; especially fruitful - in Czechoslovakia.

Cezanne Cubism

This is what the first phase is usually called. cubism, which is characterized tendency to abstract and simplify the forms of objects. According to one of the first researchers contemporary art André Salmona, cubism was a reaction to the lack of form in impressionism, and its development is due to the ideas post-impressionists, especially symbolist artists who opposed the purely pictorial goals and interests impressionists semantic phenomena. Following transcendentalism late 19th century, they argued that the real reality is possessed by the idea, and not its reflection in the material world. The role of the artist, therefore, is to create symbolic forms to embody ideas, and not imitate the changing face of things. This concept became the reason for the analysis of the means at the disposal of the artist, the elucidation of their expressive possibilities and the establishment of the ideal of purely expressive art, like music, little dependent on the outside world. At symbolists experiments in this area were primarily related to line and color, but such an analytical approach, once applied, inevitably led to form analysis.

Direct influence on the formation cubism had experiments with form in painting Paul Cezanne. In 1904 and 1907 exhibitions of his work were held in Paris. IN " Pportrait of Gertrude Stein"created Picasso in 1906, one can already feel the passion for art Cezanne. Then Picasso painted a picture "Avignon Girls" which is considered the first step towards cubism. It probably embodied the artist's interest in primitive Iberian and Negro sculpture. During 1907 and early 1908 Picasso continued to use in his works the forms of Negro sculpture (later this time began to be called "Negro" period in his work).

In the autumn of 1907, two important events took place: a retrospective exhibition Cezanne and acquaintance Marriage And Picasso. Summer 1907 Marriage spent in Estaca, where he became interested in painting Cezanne. From the end of 1907 Marriage And Picasso started working in cubist style.

cubists, which were strongly influenced by some of the postulates formulated Cezanne and published Emile Bernard autumn 1907, sought identify the simplest geometric shapes underlying objects. In order to express the ideas of things more fully, they rejected traditional perspective as an optical illusion and sought to give a comprehensive picture of them through form decomposition and combining several of its types within one picture. An increased interest in problems of form led to distinction in the use of colors: warm - for protruding elements, cold - for distant ones.

Analytical cubism

Analytical cubism, second phase cubism, is characterized the disappearance of images of objects and the gradual erasure of the differences between form and space. In the paintings of this period appear iridescent colors translucent intersecting planes, the position of which is not clearly defined. The arrangement of forms in space and their relation to large compositional masses is constantly changing. As a result, there is visual interaction of form and space.

Elements analytical cubism appeared in the works Marriage already in 1909, and in the works Picasso- in 1910; however, a stronger impetus to the development of this phase of style was given by the artistic association "golden ratio" , which was founded in 1912 Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger and brothers Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon And Jacques Villon. A book was published the same year. Gleza And Metzinger "About Cubism", and in 1913 the poet Guillaume Apollinaire published a book "Cubist Artists". They outlined the main principles of aesthetics cubism, which was based on the concept of a dynamic, ever-changing universe Henri Bergson, as well as discoveries in the natural sciences and mathematics made at the dawn of the industrial age. The artist was assigned the role of the creator of a new way of seeing the world.

Synthetic cubism

Synthetic cubism noted a radical change in the artistic perception of the movement. This first appeared in the works Juan Gris who became an active supporter cubism since 1911. Synthetic cubism sought to enrich reality by creating new aesthetic objects that have reality in themselves, and are not just an image of the visible world. This phase of style is characterized denial of the significance of the third dimension in painting And emphasizing the pictorial surface. If in analytical And hermetic cubism all artistic means had to serve to create the image of the form, then in synthetic cubism color, surface texture, pattern and line are used to construct (synthesize) a new object. The first signs of this direction were already outlined in 1912, but it was most fully embodied in the collages of 1913. Fragments of paper of various shapes and textures were pasted onto the canvas - from newspapers and notes to wallpaper. The artists argued that the surface of the picture is not an illusory reproduction of reality, but a self-sufficient object. Soon, however, cubists left the equipment applications, because, as it seemed to them, the imagination of the artist can create richer combinations of elements and textures, not limited to the possibilities of paper.

By the 1920s cubism practically ended its existence, having a noticeable impact on the development of art in the 20th century.

metaphysical painting

metaphysical painting (Italian Pittura metafisica)- direction to Italian painting beginning of the 20th century.

De Chirico and the formation of the group

Ancestor metaphysical painting is Giorgio de Chirico, who, during his stay in Paris in 1913-1914, created desert cityscapes, anticipating future aesthetics metaphysism; his series "Places of Italy" gave a fantastic dimension to the conventional Italian classical architecture, recreated by him in the paintings. In 1915, Italy entered the First World War, the artist was forced to return to Ferrara, where he was awaiting mobilization. Formation of a group of artists who professed aesthetics metaphysism, happened in 1916, when the fates of Giorgio De Chirico who broke with Futurist Carlo Carra, Filippo de Pisis and younger brother De Chirico, Andrea who took on a pseudonym Alberto Savinio. They were briefly joined in the 1920s Giorgio Morandi.

Aesthetics

IN metaphysical painting metaphor and dream become the basis for thought to go beyond ordinary logic, and the contrast between the realistically accurately depicted subject and the strange atmosphere in which it is placed, enhanced the surreal effect.

Metaphysical movement was born from this new approach to painting, and in 1916-1922 united artists and writers around the magazine "Valori Plastici" (Plastic Values), in which a series of theoretical papers was published De Chirico And Savinio dedicated to metaphysical painting. In my work "Anadiomene" by Alberto Savinio formulates two basic principles of metaphysical poetics: "ghost" and "irony". Subject "dummy", which becomes the leitmotif of the paintings De Chirico And Carra, also first appeared in the records Savinio. metaphysical painting relied on images of prior art, and included various cultural elements of the past. Savinio And De Chirico were clearly influenced neoclassical painting Arnold Böcklin; Carlo Carra, departed from futuristic experiments, returned to the old classical traditions - trecento and quattrocento paintings(this can be seen in his constructions of perspective in landscapes). Renowned Italian art critic Roberto Longhi wisely pointed out that "quattrocento has become an opera stage for metaphysical puppets and stone guests". Artists sought to find metaphysical line between the world of living and non-living, so in their pictures living is like inanimate, A inanimate objects live their own secret lives. At all "secret" - favorite word Giorgio De Chirico.

Two trends

IN metaphysical movement stood out two trends: one is especially rich symbolic and literary meanings and reminiscences (De Chirico, Savinio), the second is less doctrinaire, but more conditioned picturesque fantasy (Carra, Morandi). The movement did not create its own school or a specific group, it was rather a reaction to futurism, an expression of his crisis, and it was in this capacity that he had an influence in Italy, where some other artists began to profess a similar aesthetic at that time. (Mario Sironi, Ardengo Soffici, Massimo Campigli, Athanasio Soldati) as well as throughout Europe.

end of school

Metaphysical movement quickly disappeared from the scene. The last picture in this style De Chirico wrote in 1918, Morandi in 1920 and Carra in 1921. However, a number of ideas metaphysicians were picked up surrealists. Metaphysical movement two large exhibitions in Germany, held in 1921 and 1924, were devoted to painting.

Works metaphysical artists especially well represented in Milan museums and private collections (collections of Yucker, Toninelli, Mattioli); in London (collection of Roland Penrose); in NYC (Modern Art Museum); in Chicago (Art Institute); in Stockholm (National Museum) and in Venice (Peggy Guggenheim Foundation).


Group "Style"

Expressionism (from Latin expressio, "expression") - avant-garde movement in European art, developed in the late 19th - early 20th century, characterized by a tendency to express the emotional characteristics of the image (s) (usually a person or group of people) or the emotional state of the artist himself. Expressionism presented in a variety of art forms, including painting, literature, theatre, cinema, architecture and music.

"Expressionism, as one of the most influential artistic movements of the 20th century, was formed mainly on German and Austrian soil. Having arisen in the visual arts (groups "Bridge", 1905; "Blue Rider", 1912), he acquired his name only in 1911 by the name of the group French artists that appeared at the exhibition of the Berlin Secession. At the same time concept of "expressionism" spread to literature, cinema and related fields of creativity as a designationa system in which, in contrast to naturalism and aestheticism, the idea of ​​​​direct emotional impact, emphasized subjectivity of the creative act, increased affectation, thickening of motives of pain, scream, and, thus, the principle of expression prevails over the image.

Prerequisites for the emergence and origin of the term

It is believed that expressionism originated in Germany and important role the German philosopher played in its formation Friedrich Nietzsche, which drew attention to previously undeservedly forgotten trends in ancient art. In the book "The Birth of Tragedy, or Hellenism and Pessimism" (1871) Nietzsche presents his theory dualism, constant struggle between two types of aesthetic experience, two beginnings in ancient Greek art, which he calls Apollonian and Dionysian . Nietzsche argues with the entire German aesthetic tradition, which optimistically interpreted ancient Greek art with its bright, Apollonian basically the beginning. For the first time he speaks of another Greece - tragic, intoxicated with mythology, Dionysian, and draws parallels with the fate of Europe. Apollonian beginning is order, harmony, calm artistry and generates plastic arts (architecture, sculpture, dance, poetry), Dionysian beginning - this is intoxication, oblivion, chaos, ecstatic dissolution of identity in the mass, giving birth to non-plastic art (primarily music). Apollonian beginning opposes Dionysian how the artificial opposes the natural, condemning everything excessive, disproportionate. Nevertheless, these two beginnings are inseparable from each other, they always act together. They fight according to Nietzsche, in the artist, and both are always present in any work of art.

Influenced by ideas Nietzsche German (and after them others) artists and writers turn to chaos of feelings, to the one, that Nietzsche calls "Dionysian beginning". In its most general form, the term "expressionism" refers to works in which artistic ways expressed strong emotions, and this itself expression of emotions, communication through emotions becomes the main goal of creating a work.

It is believed that the term "expressionism" was introduced by the Czech art historian Antonin Mateshek in 1910 as opposed to the term "impressionism": "The expressionist desires, above all else, to express himself...<Экспрессионист отрицает...>instantaneous impression and builds more complex mental structures... Impressions and mental images pass through the human soul as through a filter that frees them from everything superficial to reveal their pure essence<...и>combined, condensed into more general forms, types that he<автор>rewrites them through simple formulas and symbols."

Expressionism in architecture

The largest representatives Erich Mendelsohn, Finns Ero Saarinen And Alvar Aalto; key works - Sydney Opera House (architect Jorn Utzon) And Olympic Center in Tokyo (architect Kenzo Tange).

Representatives of expressionism

art

Hans (Jean) Arp (1887-1966)
Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964)
Ernst Barlach (1870-1938)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Georges Gros (1893-1959)
Otto Dix (1891-1969)
Heinrich Campendonk (1889-1957)
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)
Paul Klee (1879-1940)
Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980)
Alfred Kubin (1877-1959)
August Macke (1887-1914)
Franz Mark (1880-1916)
Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920)
Edvard Munch (1863-1944)
Otto Müller (1874-1930)
Ernst Wilhelm Nye (1902-1968)
Emil Nolde (1867-1956)
Max Pechstein (1881-1955)
Christian Rohlfs (1849-1938)
Georges Rouault (1871-1958)
Chaim Soutine (1893-1943)
Erich Heckel (1883-1970)
Osip Zadkine (1890-1967)
Egon Schiele (1890-1918)
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976)
Alexei von Yawlensky (1864-1941)
Konrad Felixmuller (1897-1977)
Wilhelm Morgner (1891-1917)
Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

Cubism , paintings of modern artists

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Cubism is a trend in avant-garde art of the early 20th century that radically changed European painting and sculpture, as well as inspired the corresponding currents in music, literature and architecture. Cubism is considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century. The term was widely used in connection with the wide variety of art produced in Paris (Montmartre, Montparnasse and Puteaux) in the 1910s and 1920s.

Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso stood at the origins of cubism, later they were joined by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger and Juan Gris. The main factor that led to the creation of Cubism was the introduction three-dimensional shape V latest works Paul Cezanne. A retrospective of Cézanne's paintings was held at the 1904 Salon d'Automne, current work was presented at the 1905 and 1906 Salon d'Automne, and then two commemorative retrospectives after his death in 1907.

Pablo Picasso Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), 1910, oil on canvas, 100.3 x 73.6 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York

In cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken down and reassembled in an abstract form - instead of depicting objects from a single point, the artist draws the object from multiple points in order to present it in a larger context.

The influence of Cubism was far-reaching and all-round. It quickly spread throughout the world, while developing to a greater or lesser extent. Cubism was, in essence, the starting point of an evolutionary process that created diversity; he was the forerunner of various artistic movements.

Pablo Picasso Les Demoiselles d "Avignon ("The Girls of Avignon"), 1907, is considered an important step in the founding of Cubism

In France, such branches of cubism as Orphism, abstract art, and later purism developed. In other countries, Futurism, Suprematism, Dadaism, Constructivism and Neoplasticism arose. Early Futurism, like Cubism, united the past and the present, presenting different kinds simultaneously depicted object, also called multiple perspective, simultaneity or multiplicity, while constructivism was influenced by Picasso's technique, which consisted in building a sculpture from separate elements. Other common themes between these different directions include cutting or simplifying geometric shapes and the integration of mechanization and modern life.

Concept and origin

Cubism was born in 1907-1911. Pablo Picasso's 1907 painting The Maidens of Avignon is often considered a proto-Cubist work. Georges Braque's Houses in Estaque (and related works) prompted the critic Louis Vaucelles to turn to bizarreries cubiques (cubic oddities). Gertrude Stein referred to landscapes painted by Picasso in 1909, such as Pond (Reservoir in Horta de Ebro) as the first Cubist paintings. The first organized group exhibition of the Cubists took place at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in the spring of 1911, in a room called "Salle 41" (Salle 41); it included works by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier, works by Picasso and Braque have yet to be exhibited.

Pablo Picasso, 1909-1910, Figure dans un Fauteuil ("Seated Nude"), oil on canvas, 92.1 x 73 cm, Tate Modern, London

By 1911, Picasso was recognized as the inventor of cubism, while the importance and antecedence of Braque, in relation to his interpretation of space, volume and mass in the landscapes of L "Estac, was proved later. But "this vision of cubism is associated with a clearly limiting definition of which of the artists to correctly call cubists ”, wrote art historian Christopher Green: “Ignoring the contribution of artists who exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1911 ...”

Historians have divided the history of cubism into stages. According to one version, the first stage of cubism, known as analytical cubism, a phrase coined by Juan Gris on the basis of experience, was as radical and influential as a short but important movement in the art of 1910-1912 in France. The second stage, synthetic cubism, remained relevant until 1919, when surrealism gained popularity. The English art historian Douglas Cooper offered a different version, describing the three stages of Cubism in his book The Age of Cubism. According to Cooper, "early cubism" (1906-1908) was when the trend developed in the studios of Picasso and Braque; the second stage was called "high cubism" (1909-1914), during which time a significant representative of cubism Juan Gris appeared (after 1911); and in conclusion, Cooper named "Late Cubism" (1914-1921) as the last stage of Cubism as a radical avant-garde movement. Douglas Cooper limited the use of these terms to distinguish the work of Braque, Picasso, Gris (since 1911) and Léger (to a lesser extent) by implying a deliberate value judgment.

The claim that the Cubists represent space, mass, time, and volume by confirming (instead of denying) the flatness of the canvas was made by Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler in 1920, but in the 1950s and 1960s it became the subject of criticism, especially from Clement Greenberg. Modern Cubist views are complex, formed to some extent in response to the Cubists of Room 41, whose methods were too different from Picasso and Braque, and are considered only secondary to them. Therefore, alternative interpretations of Cubism have been developed. The broader views of Cubism include: artists who were later associated with the artists of "Room 41", such as Francis Picabia; brothers Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Marcel Duchamp, who started at the end of 1911, forming the nucleus of the "Golden Ratio" (or Puteaux group); sculptors Alexander Archipenko, Jozsef Czaky and Ossip Zadkine, as well as Jacques Lipchitz and Henri Laurent; and such painters as Louis Marcoussis, Roger de la Frenais, Frantisek Kupka, Diego Rivera, Leopold Survage, Auguste Herbin, André Lot, Gino Severini (after 1916), Marie Blanchard (after 1916) and Georges Valmière (after 1918 G.). More significantly, Christopher Green argues that Douglas Cooper's terms were "subsequently challenged by interpretations of the work of Picasso, Braque, Léger and Gris that emphasize iconographic and ideological issues rather than methods of presentation."

John Berger defines the essence of Cubism with a mechanical scheme. “The metaphorical model of Cubism is a diagram: a diagram is a visible symbolic representation of invisible processes, forces, structures. The diagram does not need to avoid certain aspects of its appearance, but they too will be treated as marks, not copies or re-creations."

Technical and stylistic aspects

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Europeans discovered African, Polynesian, Micronesian, and Native American art. Artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso were intrigued and inspired by the incredible power and simplicity of the styles of these foreign cultures. Around 1906, Picasso met Matisse through Gertrude Stein, at a time when both artists were just becoming interested in primitivism and Iberian sculpture, African art and African tribal masks. They became friendly rivals and competed with each other throughout their lives, which, perhaps by 1907, led Picasso to a new period in his work, which was marked by the influence of Greek, Iberian and African art. Picasso's paintings of 1907 are defined as proto-Cubism, the forerunner of Cubism, which is especially evident in the painting "The Maidens of Avignon".

Jean Metzinger La Femme au Cheval ("Woman with a Horse"), 1911-1912, State Museum of Art, National Gallery of Denmark. She exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1912 and was published in Apollinaire's book The Cubists. Aesthetic Reflections" in 1913. Provenance: Jacques Nayral, Niels Bohr

Art historian Douglas Cooper claims that Paul Gauguin and Paul Cezanne "were very influential in the formation of Cubism, and especially in Picasso's paintings of 1906-1907." Cooper says that: "" Avignon maidens", is generally referred to as the first Cubist image. This is an exaggeration, for although it was the first major step towards Cubism, it is not yet Cubism. The subversive, expressionist element in it even contradicts the spirit of cubism, which looks at the world in a detached, realistic spirit. However, The Maidens of Avignon is a logical painting accepted as the starting point of Cubism because it marks the birth of a new picturesque style because in it Picasso violently destroyed the established customs, and because everything that followed grew out of it.

The most serious objection to The Maidens of Avignon, as a source of Cubism, with an obvious influence on the picture of primitive art, is that "such conclusions are historically unreliable," wrote art critic Daniel Robbins. This familiar explanation "does not do justice to the many facets of the flourishing art that existed before and during the period when Picasso's new painting was painted. In 1905-1908, the conscious search for a new style caused rapid changes in the art of all France, Germany, Holland, Italy and Russia. The Impressionists used the double point of view, while the Nabis and Symbolists (who also admired Cezanne) flattened the picture plane, reducing objects to simple geometric shapes. The neo-impressionist structures and themes most prominent in the work of Georges Seurat (eg Parade, Can-Can and Circus) were another important influence. There are also parallels in the development of literature and social thought.

In addition to Seurat, the roots of Cubism can be found in two distinct tendencies in Cézanne's late work: the first is the division of the pictorial surface into small polyhedral areas, thereby emphasizing the multiple viewpoint of binocular vision, and the second is an interest in simplifying natural forms into cylinders, spheres, and cones. . However, the Cubists explored this concept more deeply than Cezanne. They represented all the surfaces of the depicted objects in one picture plane, as if all sides of the objects became visible at the same time. This new kind of depiction has fundamentally changed the way objects are rendered in painting and art.

historical research Cubism began in the late 1920s, relying on the first of the sources with limited data, namely the opinions of Guillaume Apollinaire. It also relied heavily on Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler's Der Weg zum Kubismus (The Path to Cubism) (published 1920), which focused on the development of Picasso, Braque, Léger and Gris. The terms "analytical" and "synthetic", which subsequently appeared, have been widely accepted since the mid-1930s. Both terms are historically imposed, and arose after the facts they define. Neither of the two stages was established as such at the time when related work were created. Daniel Robbins wrote, "If Kahnweiler treats Cubism like Picasso and Braque, our only fault lies in subordinating the work of other Cubists to the rigor of this limited definition."

The traditional interpretation of "Cubism", which evolved after the fact as a way of understanding the work of Braque and Picasso, affected our assessment of other artists of the twentieth century. It is difficult to convert painters like Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier, whose fundamental differences from traditional Cubism led Kahnweiler to question their right to be called Cubists at all. In the words of Daniel Robbins, "To believe that simply because these artists developed differently or departed from the traditional style that they deserved to be sidelined in Cubism is a profound misconception."

The history of the term "cubism" usually highlights the fact that Matisse referred to "cubes" in connection with a painting by Braque in 1908, and that the term was published twice in a similar context by the critic Louis Vaucelles. However, another critic, Louis Chassevin, used the word "cube" in 1906, referring not to Picasso or Braque, but rather to Metzinger and Delaunay:

“Metzinger is as mosaicist as Signac, but he gives more precision to the color cut of the cubes, which, apparently, are created mechanically ...”

Critical use of the word "cube" dates back at least to May 1901 when Jean Béral, analyzing Henri Edmond Cross's work on the Indépendants at Art et Littérature, commented that he "uses large and square pointillism, giving the impression of a mosaic. He even wondered why the artist did not use variously colored cubes: they would have created a nice cover” (Robert Herbert, 1968, p. 221)

The term cubism did not come into general use until 1911, especially in relation to Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay and Léger. In 1911, the poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire adopted the term on behalf of a group of artists invited to exhibit in Brussels at the Independents exhibition. The following year, in preparation for the Salon d'Or, Metzinger and Gleizes wrote and published a manifesto On Cubism, in an attempt to dispel the confusion that raged around the word and as the main defense of Cubism (which caused public scandal at the Salon des Indépendants in 1911 and the Salon d'Automne in 1912 in Paris). Clarifying their goals as artists, this work was the first theoretical treatise on Cubism, and it still remains the clearest and most understandable. The result, not only of the collaboration of the two authors, showed the discussions of the circle of artists who met in Puteaux and Courbevoie. It reflects the attitude of the "Passy artists", among whom were Picabia and the Duchamp brothers, who had a paragraph of the manifesto read to them prior to its publication. It developed the concept of observing an object simultaneously from different points in space and time, i.e. the act of moving around an object in order to capture it from several angles that have merged into a single image (multiple points of view, mobile perspectives, simultaneity or multiplicity) is a universally recognized technique used by the Cubists.

In 1913, the 1912 manifesto On Cubism by Metzinger and Gleizes was followed by The Cubist Painters: Reflections on Art, a collection of images and commentaries by Guillaume Apollinaire. He was closely associated with Picasso from 1905 and Braque from 1907, but paid much attention to such artists as Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, Picabia and Duchamp.

Cubism before 1914

There is a clear difference between the Cubists of Kahnweiler and the Cubists of the Salon. Until 1914, Marriage, Picasso and Leger (to a lesser extent), Gris received the support of the only interested art dealer in Paris, Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, who guaranteed them an annual income for the exclusive right to purchase their works. Sold them only to a small circle of connoisseurs. His support gave artists the freedom to experiment in relative privacy. Picasso worked in Montmartre until 1912, while Braque and Gris remained there until the end of the First World War. Léger settled in Montparnasse.

Albert Gleizes Man on a Balcony (Portrait of Dr. Théo Morinaud), 1912, oil on canvas, 195.6 x 114.9 cm, Art Museum Philadelphia. Finished in the same year as Albert Gleizes book On Cubism, co-authored with Jean Metzinger. Exhibited at the Autumn Salon in Paris in 1912, and at the Arsenal Exhibition in New York, Chicago and Boston in 1913.

At the same time, the Salon Cubists built their reputation primarily by exhibiting regularly at the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants, the main non-academic salons in Paris. They were inevitably more aware of public feedback and the need for communication. Already in 1910, a group began to form, which included Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay and Léger. They met regularly in the studio of Henri Le Fauconnier near the Boulevard de Montparnasse. These evenings were frequented by writers such as Guillaume Apollinaire and André Salmon. Together with other young artists, the group wanted to focus their research on form, as opposed to the Neo-Impressionists who emphasized color...

Louis Vauxcelles, in his review of the 26th Salon des Indépendants (1910), briefly and vaguely mentioned Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, Léger and Le Fauconnier as "ignorant geometers who reduced the human body to pale cubes". At the Salon d'Automne in 1910, a few months later, Metzinger exhibited an extremely broken Nude (Nu à la cheminée), which was subsequently reproduced in Apollinaire's The Cubist Painters: Reflections on Art (1913).

The first public controversy generated by Cubism arose as a result of salon exhibitions at the Independents in the spring of 1911. This show by Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, Le Fauconnier and Léger first brought Cubism to the attention of the general public. Among the Cubist works on display, Robert Delaunay exhibited The Eiffel Tower (Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York).

At the Autumn Salon of the same year, in addition to the group of independent artists Hall 41, works by André Lot, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Villon, Roger de la Fresnay, André Dunoyer de Segonzac and František Kupka were exhibited. The exhibition was reviewed on October 8, 1911 in the New York Times. This article was published one year after Gelett Burgess' The Wild Men of Paris, and two years before the Arsenal Exhibition, which amazed Americans accustomed to realistic art as well as the experimental styles of the European avant-garde, including Fauvism, Cubism and Futurism. . A New York Times article from 1911 illustrated works by Picasso, Matisse, Derain, Metzinger and other artists painted before 1909; not exhibited at the Salon of 1911. It was titled "The Cubists Dominate the Salon d'Automne in Paris" and subtitled "An Eccentric School of Painting Increases Its Popularity at the Current Art Exhibition - What Its Followers Are Trying to Do".

“Among all the paintings on display at the Salon d'Automne in Paris, nothing attracts as much attention as the extraordinary creation of the so-called school of 'Cubism'. In fact, reports from Paris suggest that these easy work main feature of the exhibition.

Despite the crazy nature of the theories of cubism, the number of those who profess them is quite significant. Georges Braque, André Derain, Picasso, Chobel, Othon Friesz, Erben, Metzinger - these are a few names that have signed the canvases that Paris has stood before, and now it stands again in complete amazement.

What do they mean? Those in charge of them said goodbye to their sanity? Is this art or madness? Who knows?"

The subsequent Salon des Indépendants of 1912 was marked by the presentation of Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending Staircase No. 2, which caused a scandal, even among the Cubists. In reality, it was rejected by an exhibition committee that included his brothers and other Cubists. However, the work was shown at the "Salon of the Golden Section" in October 1912 and at the 1913 Arsenal Exhibition in New York, Duchamp never forgave his brothers and former colleagues for censoring his work. Juan Gris, a new acquisition of the salon society, exhibited "Portrait of Picasso" (Art Institute of Chicago), while two exhibitions by Metzinger included "Woman with a Horse" (La Femme au Cheval) 1911-1912 (National Gallery of Denmark). The exhibition also featured the monumental "City of Paris" by Delaunay (Museum of Modern Art, Paris) and "The Wedding" by Léger (Museum of Modern Art, Paris).

"Cubists Dominate Paris Salon d'Automne", New York Times, October 8, 1911. Picasso's 1908 Seated Woman is printed with a photograph of the artist in his studio (top left). Jean Metzinger's Baigneuses ("Bathers") (1908-1909) is top right. Also on display are works by Derain, Matisse, Friesz, Erben and a photograph of Braque.

Cubism's contribution to the Salon d'Automne in 1912 created a scandal regarding the use of public buildings, such as the Grand Palace, for the exhibition of such works. Outraged politician Jean-Pierre Philippe Lampier made the front page of Le Journal on October 5, 1912. The dispute spread to the municipal council of Paris, leading to a discussion in the Chamber of Deputies about the use of public funds to provide space for this kind of art. The Cubists were defended by the socialist deputy Marcel Samba.

It was against this background of public anger that Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes wrote On Cubism (published by Eugène Figier in 1912, translated into English and Russian in 1913). Among the works shown were: Le Fauconnier's major work Les Montagnards attaqués par des ours (Bears Attack Climbers), now in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Two Women by Jozsef Czaka (sculpture now lost), along with high abstract painting Kupki "Amorpha" (National Gallery, Prague), and "Spring" Picabia (Museum of Modern Art, New York).

Abstraction and readymade

Most extreme forms cubism were not those practiced by Picasso and Braque, who resisted full abstraction, but other cubists, especially Frantisek Kupka, and those whom Apollinaire referred to as Orphists (Delaunay, Leger, Picabia and Duchamp), accepting abstraction, they completely removed the visible object of the image . Two exhibits of Kupka at the "Autumn Salon" in 1912, "Amorpha. Two-color fugue” and “Amorpha. Chromatic Heat" were highly abstract (or non-representational) and metaphysically oriented. Duchamp in 1912 and Picabia in 1912-1914 developed an expressive and symbolic abstraction dealing with complex emotional and sexual themes.

Robert Delaunay Simultaneous Windows on the City, 1912, 46 x 40 cm, Hamburg Kunsthalle, an example of abstract cubism.

Beginning in 1912, Delaunay painted a series of "Simultaneous Window" paintings that followed "Rounded Forms" in which he combined flat structures with bright prismatic hues; based on the optical characteristics of the combined colors, his departure from reality in the depiction of images was almost complete. In 1913-1914, Léger created a series called Contrasts of Forms, with a similar emphasis on color, lines and shapes. His Cubism, despite being abstract, was linked to the themes of mechanization and modern life. Apollinaire supported these early achievements of abstract Cubism in The Cubist Painters (1913), writing about a new "pure" painting in which the subject was liberated. But despite his use of the term Orphism, these works were so different that they defied attempts to place them in the same category.

The Cubist-inspired Marcel Duchamp, whom Apollinaire classified as an Orpist, was also responsible for another extreme movement. The readymade arose from the consensus that the work itself is considered an exhibit (just like a painting), and that it uses the material fragments of this world (like collage and papier-colle in cubist assemblage constructions). The next logical step for Duchamp was to show the ordinary object as a work of art in its own right that only represents itself. In 1913 he attached a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool, and in 1914 he chose a bottle dryer as his own sculpture.

golden ratio

The Golden Ratio, also known as the Puteaux Group, founded by the most prominent Cubists, was an association of painters, sculptors and critics associated with Cubism and Orphism, active around 1911-1914, and made famous by the Salon des Indépendants debating exhibition of 1911 of the year. The "Salon of the Golden Section" at the gallery "La Boetie" in Paris in October 1912, was perhaps the most important exhibition of Cubism before the First World War; showcasing Cubism to a wider audience. More than 200 works on display, and the fact that many of the artists showed the development of their works from 1909 to 1912, gave it the charm of a Cubist retrospective.

The group seems to have adopted the name "Golden Ratio" to distinguish themselves from the narrow definition of Cubism that Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque developed in parallel in Montmartre, and to show that Cubism, no longer an isolated art form, but a continuation of a great tradition ( in fact, the golden ratio has fascinated Western intellectuals of all kinds for at least 2,400 years).

"Autumn Salon" in 1912 was held in Paris in Grand Palace October 1st to November 8th. Sculpture Jozsef Czaky Groupe de femmes ("Group of Women") 1911-1912 displayed on the left, in front of two sculptures by Amedeo Modigliani. Other works by artists of the Golden Ratio are presented from left to right: František Kupka, Francis Picabia, Jean Metzinger and Henri Le Fauconnier.

The idea of ​​the "Golden Section" arose in the course of a conversation between Metzinger, Gleizes and Jacques Villon. The name of the group was proposed by Villon, after reading in 1910 Joseph Péladan's translation of Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts under the title "Treatise on Painting" (Codex Urbinas).

The fact that the exhibition of 1912 was organized to show the successive stages through which Cubism passed, and that the treatise "On Cubism" was published on this occasion, indicates the desire of artists to make their work understandable to a wide audience (art critics, collectors, art dealers and the general public). Undoubtedly thanks to great success exhibitions, cubism was recognized as a trend, genre or style in art with a specific general philosophy or goal: a new avant-garde movement.

Aspirations and interpretations

The Cubism of Picasso, Braque and Gris had not merely a technical or formal meaning, but different views and the intentions of the salon cubists, who created various types of cubism, and not derivatives of their work. Christopher Green wrote: “In any case, it is not at all clear to what extent these Cubists depend on Picasso and Braque for the development of techniques such as cutting, 'transition' and multiple perspective; they may well have arrived at such a practice with little knowledge of "true" Cubism, being in the early stages, and guided above all by their understanding of Cezanne." The works that these Cubists exhibited at the Salon in 1911 and 1912 went beyond the usual Cezanne themes—posing models, still lifes, and landscapes—that Picasso and Braque favored, and included large-scale themes of contemporary life. Aimed at the general public, these pieces emphasized the use of multiple perspectives and intricate flat cuts to achieve expressive effect, while maintaining the eloquence of plots endowed with literary and philosophical significance...

In On Cubism, Metzinger and Gleizes directly connected the sense of time with multiple perspectives, giving a symbolic expression to the concept of "duration" proposed by the philosopher Henri Bergson, according to which life is subjectively perceived as continuous with the past flowing into the present and the present into the future. Salon Cubists used the faceted treatment of solid objects and space and the effect of multiple points of view to convey a physical and psychological sense of fluidity of consciousness, blurring the distinctions between past, present and future. One of the major theoretical innovations that the Salon Cubists created, independently of Picasso and Braque, coincided with "simultaneity", approaching more or less the theories of Henri Poincaré, Ernst Mach, Charles Henry, Maurice Princeton, and Henri Bergson. Simultaneously, the concept of separate spatial and temporal dimensions was completely questioned. Linear perspective, developed during the Renaissance, was abolished. The subject of the image was no longer viewed from a certain point of view at a particular moment in time, but was built following a set of points of view, i.e., as if viewed simultaneously from multiple angles (and in several dimensions) with a gaze freely moving from one to another.

This technique of representing simultaneity and different points of view (or complex movement) gave rise to a highly complex monumental work Gleizes Le Dépiquage des Moissons (The Threshing of the Harvest) exhibited at the Salon d'Or in 1912, Le Fauconnier's Abundance shown in the Indépendants in 1911, and Delaunay's The City of Paris shown in the Indépendants in 1912. These large-scale works are one of the largest paintings in the history of cubism. Léger's Marriage, also exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1912, gave form to the notion of simultaneity by presenting different motifs as taking place in the same time period, where reactions to past and present are combined with collective forces. Together such a subject at the same time aligns the salon of cubism with early paintings futurist, Umberto Boccioni, Gino Severini and Carlo Carra; directly made in response to early cubism.

Cubism and modern European art were introduced to the US at the legendary 1913 "Arsenal Exhibition" in New York, which then traveled to Chicago and Boston. At the "Arsenal Exhibition" Pablo Picasso exhibited "Woman with Mustard Pot" (1910), the sculpture "Head of a Woman (Fernanda)" (1909-1910), "Two Trees" (1907) among other Cubist works. Jacques Villon presented seven important and major drypoint engravings, his brother Marcel Duchamp shocked the American public with Nude Descending Stairs No. 2 (1912). Francis Picabia showed the abstractions "Dance in the Spring" and "Procession, Seville" (both 1912). Albert Gleizes exhibited Woman with Phloxes (1910) and Man on a Balcony (1912), two highly stylized and faceted cubist works. Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Roger de la Frenay and Alexander Archipenko also contributed examples of their cubist work...

Just as in painting, Cubist sculpture is rooted in Paul Cézanne's reduction of painted objects to composite planes and geometric bodies (cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones). And just like in painting, it became a pervasive influence and contributed significantly to constructivism and futurism.

Pablo Picasso, 1909-1910, Head of a Woman. Side view, bronze sculpture, created in the likeness of Fernanda Olivier. Frontal view of the same cast bronze, 40.5 x 23 x 26 cm. These photographs were published in Umělecký Mĕsíčník ("Artistic Monthly"), 1913.

Cubist sculpture developed in parallel with cubism in painting. In the autumn of 1909, Picasso created "Head of a Woman (Fernanda)" with positive features using negative and positive space. According to Douglas Cooper: "The first true Cubist sculpture was Picasso's impressive Head of a Woman, modeled in 1909-1910, the equivalent in three dimensions to many similar analytical and faceted heads in his paintings of the time." These positive/negative changes were ambitiously used by Alexander Archipenko in 1912-1913, for example, in The Walking Woman. After Archipenko, Jozsef Csaky was the first sculptor in Paris to join the Cubists, with whom he exhibited his work from 1911. They were followed by Raymond Duchamp-Villon and then in 1914 by Jacques Lipchitz, Henri Laurent and Ossip Zadkine.

Indeed, the Cubist construction was as influential as any artistic innovation in the Cubist style. It became the impetus against the backdrop of the proto-constructivist work of Naum Gabo and Vladimir Tatlin and thus the starting point for the entire constructive direction in 20th-century modernist sculpture.

1914-1918

The significant change in Cubism in 1914-1916 was indicative of a particular emphasis on large overlapping geometric planes and the activity of the flat surface. A similar grouping of styles of painting and sculpture, especially significant in 1917-1920, was practiced by several artists; especially those who were associated with the art dealer and collector Léonce Rosenberg. The compression of the compositions, the purity and sense of order reflected in these works, led the critic Maurice Reynal to call him "pure" Cubism. Questions that preoccupied the Cubists before World War I, such as the fourth dimension, the dynamism of modern life, the occult, and Henri Bergson's concept of duration, are now abolished, replaced by a pure formal frame of reference.

Jean Metzinger, 1914-1915, Soldat jouant aux échecs ("The Soldier Plays Chess"), oil on canvas, 81.3 x 61 cm, Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago

"Pure" cubism and its associative rappel à l "ordre (call for order) were associated with the impulse - those who served in the armed forces and those who remained in the civilian sector - to avoid the reality of the First World War, during and directly In French society and culture, the "cleansing" of Cubism from 1914 to the mid-1920s, with its cohesive unity and self-imposed restrictions, was coupled with a much broader ideological transformation towards conservatism.

Cubism after 1918

Before 1914 was the most innovative period of Cubism. After the First World War, thanks to the support provided by the dealer Léonce Rosenberg, cubism again took center stage for artists and remained there until the mid-1920s, when its avant-garde status began to be questioned by the rise of geometric abstraction and surrealism in Paris. . Many Cubists, including Picasso, Braque, Gris, Léger, Gleizes and Metzinger developed other styles, periodically returning to Cubism, even after 1925. Cubism reappeared in the 1920s and 1930s in the work of the American Stuart Davis and the Englishman Ben Nicholson. In France, however, Cubism experienced a decline starting around 1925. Léonce Rosenberg exhibited not only the artists left in exile by Kahnweiler, but others: Lawrence, Lipchitz, Metzinger, Gleizes, Chaka, Erben and Severini. In 1918, Rosenberg presented a series of exhibitions of Cubism at his gallery L "Effort Moderne" ("Modern Effort") in Paris. Louis Vaucelles made attempts to claim that Cubism was dead, but these exhibitions, along with the well-organized Cubist exhibition of the Salon des Indépendants in 1920 and the revival of the "Salon of the Golden Section" in the same year, showed that he was still alive.

The renaissance of Cubism coincided with the appearance, around 1917-1924, of the theoretical writings of Pierre Reverdy, Maurice Reynal and Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, among the painters Gris, Léger and Gleizes. The periodic return to classicism - figurative art, either exclusively or alongside cubism - that many artists encountered during this period (so-called neoclassicism) was associated with a tendency to evade the realities of war, as well as the cultural predominance of the image of classical or Latin France during and immediately after the war. Cubism, after 1918, in French society and culture can be seen as part of a broad ideological shift towards conservatism. However, Cubism itself developed, both in the work of individual artists such as Gris and Metzinger, and in the work of artists who differed from each other: Braque, Léger and Gleizes. Cubism, as a publicly discussed movement, became relatively unified and open to definition. Its theoretical purity made it a benchmark against which to compare such different trends as realism or naturalism, Dadaism, surrealism and abstraction.

Cubism in other areas

The influence of Cubism extended to other areas of art, beyond painting and sculpture. In literature, in the writings of Gertrude Stein, repetitions and repeated phrases were used as building blocks in passages and entire chapters. This technique is used in most of the author's important works, including the novel The Making of Americans (1906-1908). As well as being the first significant patrons of Cubism, Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo also had a major influence on Cubism. In turn, Picasso strongly influenced literary creativity Stein.

In the realm of American fiction, William Faulkner's novel When I Was Dying (1930) can be interpreted as an interaction with the cubist method. The novel contains stories of various experiences of 15 characters, which, brought together, create a single plot.

Pablo Picasso Three Musicians ("Three Musicians"), 1921, Museum of Modern Art. The Three Musicians is a classic example of synthetic cubism.

Poets commonly associated with Cubism include: Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, André Salmon, and Pierre Reverdy. As an American poet, Kenneth Rexroth explains that cubism in poetry "is the conscious, deliberate dissociation and recombination of elements into a new artistic organization, which became independent thanks to strict architecture. This is quite different from the free society of the Surrealists and the union of unconscious utterance and the political nihilism of the Dadaists." However, the influence of the Cubist poets on Cubism and later movements of Dada and Surrealism was profound; Louis Aragon, one of the founders of surrealism, said that for Breton, Soupault, Eluard and himself, Reverdy was "our closest senior, exemplary poet." Although not as well remembered as Cubist painters, these poets continue to influence and inspire; the American poets John Ashbury and Ron Padgett have recently created new translations of Reverdy's works. Wallace Stevens, author of Thirteen Ways to See a Thrush, has also said he demonstrates how the multiple perspective of Cubism can be translated into poetry.

“It is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of Cubism. He made such a big revolution in the visual arts, which was in the early Renaissance. His influence on later art, films and architecture is already so great that we hardly notice him.” (John Berger)

The history of cubism in painting dates back to Pablo Picasso's "Girls of Avignon", written in 1907 under the influence of African sculpture and the work of Paul Cezanne ...

At the beginning of the 20th century, a global revolution took place in painting (and not only): artists, ignoring the conventions of the academic school and realism, freely experimented with form, color, appliqué and other expressive means, resulting in a number of modernist trends in fine arts. One of them is cubism.

“Portrait of Anna Akhmatova”, Nathan Altman, 1914, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Story cubism in painting originates from the “Avignon girls” by Pablo Picasso, written in 1907 under the influence of African sculpture and the work of Paul Cezanne.

Girls of Avignon, Pablo Picasso, 1907 (243.9x233.7, oil on canvas), Museum of Modern Art, New York

The figures of the girls in the picture are depicted in outline, chiaroscuro and perspective are absent, the background shattered into fragments of various shapes.

Then, in 1907, Pablo Picasso met the young, but already shown high results in Fauvism (another modernist trend of the early twentieth century), by the artist Georges Braque. Together they become the founders of a new direction in painting - cubism, hold regular meetings, discussions, exchange findings.

“Plate and Dish with Fruit”, Georges Braque, 1908, private collection (46x55, oil on canvas)

Name " cubism” appeared in 1908, when art critic Louis Vossel called Braque’s new paintings “bizarreries cubiques”, which means “cubic quirks” in French.

Artists Juan Gris, Marie Laurencin, Fernand Leger joined the new direction. In the course of several years in style cubism Robert Delaunay, Albert Gleizes, Henri Le Fauconnier, Jean Metzinger, Francis Picabia and others begin to work.

“Guitar on the table”, Juan Gris, 1915, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, The Netherlands, (73x92)

Paul Cezanne and his role in the emergence of cubism

First period cubism called “Cezanne”, as the cubist artists continued the experiments of Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) with form, perspective and the search for new compositional solutions.

“Pierrot and Harlequin”, Paul Cezanne, 1888, Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin, Moscow

The painting “Pierrot and Harlequin” was painted by Paul Cezanne in 1888, that is, 19 years before the emergence of cubism as a separate direction. In this work, the artist’s work on geometric shapes (circles, ovals and rhombuses), the direction of the lines of the drawing to a certain point, as well as a non-standard angle of view can be traced: the viewer looks at the characters, as it were, a little from above and to the left. The perspective is depicted incorrectly: it seems that Pierrot and Harlequin are in different spatial dimensions. The original compositional solution creates the effect of broken, mechanical and puppet movements of the figures, despite the fact that these are living characters with living faces.

In a letter to the artist Emile Bernard (circa 1904), Paul Cezanne wrote: “We must return to classicism through nature, in other words, through sensation. In nature, everything is molded on the basis of a ball, a cone and a cylinder. Drawing and color are inseparable, as you write, you draw: the more harmonious the color becomes, the more accurate the drawing becomes. When the color reaches greatest wealth, the form becomes complete. Contrasts and tonal relationships are the whole secret of drawing and modeling.”

Stages [phases] of Cubism

In the theory of art history, there are Stage III[phases] of cubism:

Stage I: Cezanne Cubism(1907 - 1909) - highlighting the geometric shapes of figures and objects, separating the form from space / plane.

Stage II: Analytical Cubism(1909-1912) - crushing forms into edges and slices, building a composition using a collage of intersecting slices and planes, erasing the boundaries between form and space, visual interaction of form and space.

“Violin and candlestick”, Georges Braque, 1910, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (61x50, oil on canvas, direction “ analytical cubism”).

III stage: synthetic cubism(1913 - 1914) - with the help of geometric shapes and their fragments, new objects are constructed that have reality in themselves, and are not an image of the visible world. Collages are created, among other things, with the help of applications, which most often represent fragments of a newspaper sheet pasted into the composition.

“Le Jour”, Georges Braque, 1929, National Gallery of Art, Washington (115x146.7, oil on canvas, direction “ synthetic cubism”)

Thus, the cubists decomposed the object into geometric elements and separated it from space, the shape of objects was shown in sections, bends, from different angles of view, in unsystematic replications and other modifications.

Started in France cubism became popular in different countries of the world, including Russia. To the most prominent (most prominent) representatives cubism in painting include Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris.

Subsequently, cubist artists will begin to explore new directions, and from about 1925 cubism will gradually decline, making an important contribution to the development of painting.

Before cubism in European art, one of the main problems has always been the problem of lifelikeness. For several centuries, art has evolved without questioning this task. Even the Impressionists, who opened a new chapter in the history of painting devoted to light, fixing a fleeting impression, also solved the question: how to capture this world on canvas.

The impetus for the development of a new language of art, perhaps, was the question: why paint? By the beginning of the XX century. the basics of "correct" drawing could be taught to almost anyone. Photography was actively developing, and it became clear that images of a fixation, technical plan would become her domain. The artists faced the question: how can art stay alive and relevant in a world where pictorial images becoming more accessible and easier to replicate? Picasso's answer is extremely simple: in the arsenal of painting there are only its own specific means - the plane of the canvas, line, color, light, and it is absolutely not necessary to put them at the service of nature. The external world only gives impetus to the expression of the individuality of the creator. The rejection of a plausible imitation of the objective world opened up incredibly wide opportunities for artists. This process proceeded in several directions. In the field of "liberation" of color, Matisse, perhaps, was in the lead, and Braque and Picasso - the founders of cubism - were more interested in form.

Initially, under the influence of partly Iberian and African art, partly the ideas of Cezanne, Picasso began to coarsen and simplify the outlines of figures and objects (this is the period of early cubism, 1906/07-1909). The works of 1908 can serve as an example. The figures in The Farmer, Dryad, Three Women and Friendship are easily distinguished in the context of the canvas, but at the same time reduced to a certain combination of volumes conveyed by color. Cezanne said: "All natural forms can be reduced to spheres, cones and cylinders. Starting with these simple basic elements, you can do anything." Quite "Cezanne" in this sense is the work "Two Nude Figures", where human bodies are likened to the forms of the surrounding world, practically merged with it. Cezanne said: "One should not reproduce nature, but represent it, but by what pictorial means? By means of forming color equivalents." Picasso echoes him: "Cubism has never been anything other than painting for the sake of painting itself, in which all concepts of insignificant reality are excluded. Color plays a role only in so far as it helps to depict volumes."

In many still lifes of 1909, games are seen from the point of view of objects: for example, in the canvas "Bread and a bowl of fruit on the table", the view is directed from above to the vase and fruit, and to the inverted cup - from the side and slightly from below, because we do not see its bottom . More and more freely, the master manipulates the means of representation, now he is really free to do "whatever he wants" with them.

The period of "analytical" cubism begins (1909/10-1912). This manner can be seen in the portrait of Ambroise Vollard, on which Picasso worked in 1910. The face of the marchand is given a natural color, so it easily stands out from the mixing of faces, fragmentary forms, lines (in the portrait of Daniel Henri Kahnweiler, the face is almost not emphasized by color, and the work seems more formal and cold). The color in the works of this period only emphasizes the volumes and allows you to reveal the plastic essence of the image object. Picasso spoke about the decomposition of the form of an integral object into small heterogeneous details as follows: “The viewer sees the picture only in parts; always only a fragment at a time: for example, the head, but not the body, if it is a portrait; or the eye, but not the nose or mouth. Therefore, everything is always right."

In the works of synthetic cubism, dating from 1912-1914, the collage technique was often used, they included hitherto "outside" art elements (newspapers, fabrics, grains of sand, earth) and turned into some kind of art objects, the components of which only indicated similarities, correspondences , gave certain guidelines to the person looking at the picture, but did not show the subject in its "givenness" (as an example, one can cite the works "Guitar" of 1913 and "Composition with a bunch of grapes and a cut pear" of 1914).

Nevertheless, the increasing decomposition and distortion of forms (especially during the period of analytical cubism) led to the fact that the audience began to perceive cubist works as abstract, and Picasso did not like this at all. It was important for him that the viewer, firstly, emotionally react to the canvas, and secondly, to catch the author's message embedded in the work, and - preferably - obey him. With pure abstraction, however, this is far from always possible. Thus, cubism, which opened up a lot of new opportunities for fine art, gradually ceased to interest the master who created it.

Cubist painting. cubist style.

Cubism(Cubism), a modernist movement in painting (and to a lesser extent in sculpture) of the 1st quarter of the 20th century. The style of cubism is attributed to 1907 and is associated with the work of Picasso and Braque, in particular with Picasso's painting "The Maidens of Avignon", which depicts deformed, coarsened figures, and there is no perspective and chiaroscuro.

Paintings of Cubism meant a complete break with realistic image nature, which has prevailed in Europe since the Renaissance. The goal of Picasso and Braque is the construction of a three-dimensional form on a plane, dividing it into geometric elements. Both Cubist artists gravitated toward simple, tangible forms, uncomplicated plots, which is especially characteristic of the early period of Cubism, the so-called "Cezanne" (1907-1909), which was formed under the influence of African sculpture and the works of Cezanne. Powerful volumes seem to fit on the canvas, color enhances the volume (Picasso "Three Women", 1909).

The next period (1910-1912) is called "analytical cubism": the object is crushed into small faces that are clearly separated from each other, the objective form seems to blur on the canvas, there is practically no color as such (Marriage "In honor of I.S. Bach", 1912). In the latter, known as synthetic Cubism, the paintings are transformed into colorful, planar panels (Picasso's Tavern, 1913-1914), the forms become more decorative, letter stencils and various stickers are introduced into the pattern, forming collages. Juan Gris writes in this manner, along with Braque and Picasso. The 1st World War put an end to the cooperation between Braque and Picasso, however, their work had a great influence on other currents, including Futurism, Orphism, Purism and Vorticism.

Analytical cubism
Analytical Cubism, the second phase of Cubism, is characterized by the disappearance of images of objects and the gradual blurring of the distinction between form and space.

Synthetic cubism
Synthetic cubism sought to enrich reality by creating new aesthetic objects that have reality in themselves, and are not just an image of the visible world. This phase of style is characterized by the denial of the significance of the third dimension in painting and the emphasis on the pictorial surface.

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This is usually the name of the first phase of Cubism, which is characterized by a tendency to abstraction and simplification of the forms of objects.

Cubism

(fr. Cubisme) - an avant-garde trend in, primarily in, that originated at the beginning of the 20th century and is characterized by the use of emphatically geometrized conditional forms, the desire to "split" real objects into stereometric primitives.

The emergence of cubism is traditionally dated to 1906-1907 and is associated with the work of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The term "cubism" appeared in 1908, after the art critic Louis Vaucelle called the new paintings of Braque "cubic quirks" (French: bizarreries cubiques).
Beginning in 1912, a new branch of cubism was born, which art critics called "synthetic cubism".

The artistic tendencies that developed in the 1900s, which are characterized by opposition expressed in a polemical form, to the former traditions of creativity, as well as to the surrounding social stereotypes in general, were called avant-garde.
Like the directions of modernism that preceded it, the avant-garde was aimed at a radical transformation of human consciousness by means of art, at an aesthetic revolution that would destroy the spiritual inertness of the existing society, while its artistic utopian strategy and tactics were much more decisive, anarchic-rebellious.
Not satisfied with the creation of exquisite "centers" of beauty and mystery, opposing the base materiality of being, the avant-garde introduced into its images the rough matter of life, the "poetics of the street", the chaotic rhythm of the modern city, nature, endowed with powerful creative and destructive power, he more than once declaratively emphasized in in his works the principle of "anti-art", thereby rejecting not only the former, more traditional styles, but also the established concept of art in general. The avant-garde was constantly attracted by the "strange worlds" of new science and technology, from which he took not only plot-symbolic motifs, but also many constructions and techniques. On the other hand, “barbarian” archaism, the magic of antiquity, primitive and folklore (in the form of borrowings from the art of the Negroes of Africa and folk print, from other "non-classical" areas of creativity, previously taken out of the fine arts). The avant-garde gave an unprecedented sharpness to the world dialogue of cultures.

Transformations covered all types of creativity, but fine arts constantly acted as the initiator of new movements. The masters of post-impressionism predetermined the most important tendencies of the avant-garde; its early front was outlined by group performances by representatives of Fauvism and Cubism.
Cubism is a modernist movement in the visual arts (mainly in painting) that originated in the 1st quarter of the 20th century. The emergence of cubism is attributed to 1907, when P. Picasso painted the painting "Girls of Avignon" (currently the painting is in the Museum of Modern Art, New York), unusual in its sharp grotesqueness: deformed, coarsened figures are depicted here without any elements of chiaroscuro and perspectives, as a combination of volumes laid out on a plane. In 1908, the Batolavoir (Raft Boat) group was formed in Paris, which included Picasso, J. Braque, the Spaniard X. Gris, and the writers G and Apollinaire. G. Stein and others. In this group, the basic principles of cubism developed and were consistently expressed. Another group, which arose in 1911 in Puteaux near Paris and took shape in 1912 at the exhibition "Seksion d'or" ("Golden Section"), included popularizers and interpreters of cubism - A. Gleizes, J. Metsenger, J. Villon, A. Le Fauconnier and artists who only partially came into contact with cubism - F. Leger, R. Delaunay, Czech F. Kupka. The word "cubists" was first used in 1908 by the French. critic L. Vosel as a derisive nickname for artists depicting the objective world in the form of combinations of regular geometric volumes (cube, ball, cylinder, cone).

Cubism marked a decisive break with the traditions of realistic art. At the same time, the work of the Cubists was in the nature of a challenge to the standard prettiness of salon art, vague allegories of symbolism, and the fragility of painting of late impressionism. Reducing to a minimum, and often striving to build their works from a combination of elementary, "primary" forms, the representatives of cubism turned to constructing a three-dimensional form on a plane, dividing the real volume into geometrized bodies, shifted, intersecting each other, perceived from different points of view. Entering the circle of many modernist movements, cubism stood out among them by its gravitation towards the harsh asceticism of color, towards simple, weighty, tangible forms, towards elementary motifs (such as a house, a tree, utensils, etc.). This is especially true for early stage cubism, which was formed under the influence of the painting of P. Cezanne (his posthumous exhibition was held in Paris in 1907). In this "Cezanne" period of cubism (1907-09), the geometrization of forms emphasizes the stability, objectivity of the world; powerful faceted volumes seem to be densely laid out on the surface of the canvas, forming a kind of relief; color, highlighting the individual facets of the object, both enhances and crushes the volume (P. Picasso, "Three Women", 1909, J. Marriage "Estac", 1908). In the next, "analytical" stage of cubism (1910 - 12), the object disintegrates, is crushed into small facets, which are clearly separated from each other: the objective form, as it were, spreads out on the canvas (P. Picasso, "A. Vollard", 1910, J. Marriage, "In honor of J. S. Bach", 1912). In the last, "synthetic" stage (1912-14), the decorative principle wins, and the paintings turn into colorful planar panels (P. Picasso, "Guitar and Violin", 1913; J. Braque, "Woman with a Guitar"); there is an interest in all kinds of textural effects - stickers (collages), powders, volumetric structures on canvas, that is, the rejection of the image of space and volume is, as it were, compensated by relief material constructions in real space.

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At the same time, cubist sculpture appeared with its geometrization and shifts in form, spatial constructions on a plane (non-pictorial compositions and assemblages - sculptures from heterogeneous materials by Picasso, works by A. Laurent, R. Duchamp-Villon, geometrized reliefs and figures by O. Zadkine, J. Lipchitz , concave counter-reliefs by A.P. Archipenko). By 1914, cubism began to give way to other trends, but continued to influence not only French artists, but also Italian futurists, Russian cubo-futurists (K. S. Malevich, V. E. Tatlin), German artists of the Bauhaus (L. Feininger, O. Schlemmer). Late cubism came close to abstract art(“abstract cubism” by R. Delone), at the same time, some major masters of the 20th century, who strove to develop a modern laconic expressive artistic language, went through the passion for cubism, overcoming its influence, - the Mexican D. Rivera, the Czechs B. Kubista, E Filla, Italian R. Guttuso, Pole Yu. T. Makovsky and others.

Cubism in the art of Picasso

“When we started painting cubist, it was not our intention to invent cubism. We just wanted to express what was in ourselves.” These words belong to Pablo Picasso. It was his works that gave impetus to the emergence of a new modernist trend of cubism.

Until 1906, Picasso is spontaneous, remains indifferent to purely plastic problems, and the artist seems to show almost no interest in finding modern painting. Since 1905, and probably already under the influence of Cezanne, he strives to give forms more simplicity and significance, to a lesser extent, however, reflected in his first sculptural works (“Jester”, 1905) than in the works of the Hellenizing period (“Boy, Leading Horse, New York, Museum of Modern Art). But the rejection of the decorative pretentiousness of early work occurs during a trip in the summer of 1906 to Andorra, to Gosol, where he first turned to "primitivism", sensual and formal, which he would develop throughout his creative career. Upon his return, Picasso completes the portrait of "Gertrude Stein" (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), writes terrible, "Barbarian Nudes" (New York, Museum of Modern Art). Further, Picasso begins to write "Avignon girls". In early 1907 the painting was completed.

Before us is another new Picasso. He seems to be embarking on the primordial, not yet overcome chaos, primitive foundations of being, where good is not separated from evil, ugliness from beauty. It is unlikely that Picasso himself knew then where he was going; his passion as an experimenter, the desire to express in plastic forms an era, his time.

And no matter how hard they try to separate the “real” Picasso from the “fake” times of the “blue” and “pink” periods, there is no doubt that it was then that the basic moral principles of his art, moral criteria, humanistic ideals, global themes of creativity were formed. Even if Picasso had not created anything after 1907, he would have remained a great artist of the twentieth century. The break with traditional canons, initiated by Pablo Picasso in 1907, when under his decisive brush the clear figures of the “Avignon Maidens” appeared, marked the birth of a new order, and the consequences of this upheaval were reflected in modern reality. With Picasso, the development of a new perception, new views and assessments, a different, updated vision of the world and our own history. With the birth of this picture, a new modernist trend in the visual arts was born - cubism.
There is no doubt about the connection of contemporary art with other aspects of reality in the modern world. The affinity of the new art of contemporary Picasso's history was first realized when he painted The Maidens of Avignon, and will continue to be strengthened by the bold pursuits of a handful of true, great artists.

"Death to good taste!" - proclaimed Picasso, hastening to carry out in the “Avignon Girls” a daring plan, like which, perhaps, the history of art has never known. As he created the picture, he discovered that they become a reflection of that side of life that for centuries was condemned to dumbness, because they were far from refinement and luxury, from elegance and external brilliance. cubism: cubism paintings cubism picasso cubism in art style cubism cubism artists presentation cubism representatives of cubism cubism in architecture direction cubism cubism cubism in Picasso painting paintings cubism cubism in russia and cubism russian cubism pablo picasso cubism from cubism to suprematism the founder of cubism cubism malevich
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This categorical denial of good taste was soon taken up by Futurists, Expressionists, and others. But this was done primarily by Picasso. And not in lengthy manifestos and programs, but in the uninhibited composition of Les Maidens of Avignon, in a painting whose very existence is more daring than all the verbal curses of the avant-garde artists of the entire century.

"Avignon Maidens" - generalization relentless search, which can be traced in Picasso's experiments with the human figure throughout 1906; they mark the denial of the past and anticipate a new era - this group of amazing women peering into new horizons.

"Avignon Maidens" testified that the spring day had come for a reassessment of former values. Every face from now on will bear the seal of resemblance to the characters in this picture. And also with the face of their creator, since he did not hesitate to choose his own face for experiments, divided it into parts and, after shaking and mixing it vigorously, put it together again, which influences the appearance of these five pathetic figures in the picture.
Many were surprised in the "Self-Portrait of the Artist with a Palette" by his close resemblance to the two central figures, whose gaze is betrayed by the rest of the participants in the composition of "Avignon Girls". The same expression, the same eyes, the similarity of faces, the same color tones. It's hard to avoid comparison. If Picasso's goal was the destruction of the old image, then the artist was looking primarily for his own face in order to paint a picture, perceived at first as the gravest insult, and later called the harbinger of a new era in the history of mankind. Picasso did not hesitate to choose his face in order to evoke the reaction he needed. In carrying out this great experiment, one could hardly find anything more familiar and intimate than one's own imperturbable face reflected in the mirror. Thus, Picasso becomes part of history, thanks to his constant denial of the past, as well as the huge gap that the "Avignon girls" created and continue to open in the outlines of the future. Picasso took a pitiless look at his past, at his own face, just as he quickly settled the score with the seething, violent flow of history. Picasso was a tireless seeker, breaking the routine showcases of the past, so that from the fragments broken glass build new images and new compositions. In the splendid lines of the Maidens of Avignon, he left an image whose main features will in time be similar to those of all looks.

In an attempt to achieve the kind of super-reality that he aspired to in his art, Picasso turned to a variety of techniques. Sometimes, for example, he depicted objects with such detailed accuracy that photographs in comparison with them seem blurry and approximate. In other cases, he emphasized the contrasts of light and shadow, achieving a breathtaking dramatic effect. But usually he managed to achieve "more real than reality itself" by expressive distortion: he changed natural look objects, mainly the human body, to pull the viewer away from traditional way perception and push to a new, higher awareness of the visible world. In none of the themes of his works does this manifest itself more than in the trants of the most traditional theme - the naked female body. cubism: cubism paintings cubism picasso cubism in art style cubism cubism artists presentation cubism representatives of cubism cubism in architecture direction cubism cubism cubism in Picasso painting paintings cubism cubism in russia and cubism russian cubism pablo picasso cubism from cubism to suprematism the founder of cubism cubism malevich
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Picasso addressed deformation already in his early works, in sketches, where there are often caricatured exaggerations that he performed for his own pleasure. At the same time, he discovered his talent as a child prodigy, making completely non-academic studies in art schools which he visited. But it was only in 1906, much later than the period when Picasso studied the art of classical antiquity and openly acknowledged its influence on his work, that the distortions in his compositions depicting people reach such an extreme that they become, in a sense, the theme of his art.
The culmination of this period of formal experiment and search was the painting "Two Offended", made in Paris in 1906. It seems that Picasso's art here is subject to two contradictory impulses. On the one hand, the figures are depicted as exaggeratedly clumsy, with such massive and clumsy heads and bodies that they must be specially supported. At the same time, an attempt was made to emphasize and approve the two-dimensional plane of the picture, which becomes a hallmark of many of the most advanced works of painting of the end. 19th century: the nude figures seem to be pushed forward, flattened across the canvas, Although it is assumed that the canvas depicts two women, a closer examination suggests that we are looking at the same figure, presented twice from diametrically opposite points of view, so that the viewer gets information about the model, not limited to one static point of the image.

The painting “Woman with a Madonna” shows that the artist is so free with nature that distortions are obtained, implying a change or displacement of accepted visual norms, it seems that the guests have nothing to do with this: here the naturalistic is redrawn in a completely new way and in the process of this a new one is born pictorial language.

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It can be seen that in the works of 1909-1910. concepts of geometric simplification of the forms of the human body dominated; however, later on the analysis of its components became more and more complicated, and it becomes more and more difficult to achieve it due to the multiplicity of points of view that has become an essential element in the form of Picasso. He sketches the composition as a linear scheme, suggested by the contour of the figure to its inner outlines. This complex but free linear sketch was used as a pair, around which a set of transparent moving and interacting planes grew. This combination speaks both of the advantage of the human figure and its inseparability from the space that envelops and surrounds it.
Critics of the beginning of the century were not slow to draw a parallel with some philosophical and scientific ideas of that time, and the theories of relativity and the fourth dimension. And although, of course, Picasso set out to specifically illustrate these concepts, but, like all great artists, his work unconsciously reflected and sometimes anticipated the intellectual atmosphere and discoveries of his time.

Two years later, towards the end of 1912, within a style that can clearly be characterized as cubism, another radical innovation appeared in Picasso's vision and approach, involving the creation of although objective, but completely anti-naturalistic images and the use of the concept of the form of space developed during previous years.
Comparison of the two works discussed above shows Picasso's path, starting with a relatively close to nature image, which became more and more geometric and abstract as it was subjected to more and more complex analysis or dissection in the light of the new relationship of the cubists to volumes and the space surrounding them.
The series of nudes, made by the artist during the Second World War, uses some of the basic principles of his early cubic style. Images are being created that, in their fear of space and cruelty, are reminiscent of some of the more disturbing and haunting visions of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

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Picasso's later style of the fifties and sixties is characterized by extreme materiality, a sense of violent energy and perseverance that is surprising in a person of any age and even somewhat implausible. Picasso was still obsessed with the image of woman, but now it is a colorful parade both in art and in life, which has become a shared theme of his art, a wide panorama that spans past and present, in which historical characters, artists and philosophers, meet and mingle with images. and the models that inhabited Picasso's canvases for seventy years.

Analytical cubism (a new painting system created by Picasso and Georges Braque around 1909) consists in the simultaneous depiction on the canvas of several sides of one object, as if visible from different points. The same analytical criterion can be applied to any of the realities and even to thinking. When Picasso combined front and profile in one portrait, he actually did exactly what he did in the period 1910-1912, when he reproduced on the canvas the spatial dissection of cups, fruit dishes or guitars; and when depicting faces from different points of view, various obscure facets of this changeable amalgam - a human being - were revealed.

All these facets are combined into a single and unique form or symbol, but each of them gives the key to interpretation, each offers a special "reading" of the image.
In 1907-1914. Picasso works in such close collaboration with Braque that it is not always possible to establish his contribution to the various stages of the cubic revolution. Picasso pays special attention to the transformation of forms into geometric blocks, increases and breaks volumes, cuts them into planes and edges, continuing in space, which he himself considers a solid body, inevitably limited by the plane of the picture. The perspective disappears, the palette gravitates towards monochrome, and although the original goal of Cubism was to reproduce a sense of space and heaviness of the masses more convincingly than with the help of traditional techniques, Picasso's paintings are often reduced to incomprehensible puzzles. In order to get back in touch with reality, Picasso and Braque introduce typographic type, elements of "decoy" and rough materials into their paintings - wallpaper, pieces of newspapers, matchboxes.

In the same image, not just several different points of view are simultaneously presented, but several different "truths", each of which is no less "truthful" than the others. So it is this uncertainty, this internal inconsistency that distorts and destroys the figure, and then recreates it in accordance with its own true internal structure.
Everything that goes into the depths invades our vision through optical illusion, and as a result, the path of an emotional reaction is opened, including imagination, memory, feelings.

It was this path that Cubism, with its new and severe objectivity, wanted to close. Both Picasso and Braque solve the problem of the third dimension by using oblique and curved lines, thus transforming objects that have depth or relief onto a flat surface. This is where the mental factor comes into play, the ideas that the brain gets about things (and this is the typically Cartesian aspect of Cubism, which puts it clearly within the framework of the fundamental rationalism of French culture).

It follows from this that, although empirically one object cannot be in two different places at the same time, in a purely mental reality of space (i.e. an ordered, structured reality in a mental representation), the same object can exist in various forms and, Naturally, in different places.

The First World War put an end to the work of many Cubists. The most prominent supporters of cubism: Braque, Léger, Metsenger, Gleizes, Villon and Lot were mobilized to the front. Lafresne, freed from military service, and Marcoussis, a Pole by origin, went to the front as volunteers. Many of them, of course, will soon return from the front and continue to work until the end of the war. At the same time, a new generation of artists (Hayden Valmier, Marie Blanchard) will adopt the language of the Cubists, but no one will return to the pre-war period. Picasso, Gris and Delaunay would continue to work in the manner previously created, but around 1917 Picasso himself set an example of infidelity to Cubism when he made the scenery for the ballet "Parade" in the "Pompeian style".

This confused many: the innovator, who seduced so many artists, returned to tradition. Critical notes about the "chameleon artist" appeared in the press. Soon Metsenger Erben and Lafresne will return to figurative forms, and Gino Severini, the most cubist among the Futurists, will publicly renounce Cubism, publishing the book "From Cubism to Classicism" ("Du Cubisme au classicisme" J. Povolozky Paris, 1921), complete fierce criticism contemporary painting methods. Other Cubists will rush in different directions: Duchamp and Picabia towards Dadaism, Mondrian towards complete abstraction, Léger Marcoussis, Gleizes Le Fauconnier and Villon towards more individual manner. Only Gris will remain absolutely faithful to Cubism and lead it to completion. It would not be an exaggeration to say that after the war, although individual cubist works appeared, cubism as a historical phenomenon practically ended.

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