Abstract-Expressionist Painting Journal

A blog-journal of abstract & expressionist painting, contemporary art, philosophy, and the future...

Cubism : Picasso, Braque and Beyond

Guernica by Pablo Picasso - a statement against war so powerful that George Bush ordered the UN to cover up their copy of this painting.

Cubism: A modern art movement in which forms are abstracted by using multiple perspective points (a revolutionary idea) and an analytical approach to the object - painting the basic geometric solid of the subject. Cubism is considered a backlash to the impressionist period in which there is an emphasis of light and color.; Cubism sometimes follows Paul Cezanne's statement that "Everything in nature takes its form from the sphere, the cone, and the cylinder." These three shapes are used to depict the object of the painting. However, a highly geometric abstraction is neither fundamental to - nor is it required by - cubism. The key point is the use of different perspectives for a single object.; The Cubist era is usually considered to have started in Paris in 1908 and continued into the 1920's and beyond. Pablo Picasso is usually thought of as the best-known cubist, although his contemporary Georges Braque is equally powerful. Some cubist experimentation continues to this day but many feel that new painters can never live-up to the creative genius shown by Picasso.

-- Chriss Pagani