Cubism in Twentieth-century Painting

This direction became an organic continuation of the previous development of the art of the twentieth century in general and of painting in particular. The origins of this process should be sought in the works of the French Impressionists half a century earlier, but Cubism developed in the twentieth century's painting in full force and breadth.

What preceded this

The Cubism style arose as a logical conclusion to the search for new forms in the visual arts. Its first manifestations can be observed in the works of the French post-impressionist Paul Cezanne. The key moment in his painting is the accentuation of the volume of the objects depicted. Previous to him Impressionist artists thought of large color spots and coloristic harmonies.

Cezanne was the first to step on this path of an exaggerated three-dimensional image of the shapes of objects. From this began cubism in painting. Plastic methods of transferring forms, discovered by Cezanne, were picked up by other authors. A new approach to the image of the visible world revealed new, previously inaccessible expressive possibilities. Many people treated the new trends in art very cautiously and blamed the Cubists for breaking with realistic traditions that had been established over many centuries. But the new artists were least interested in the realistic mapping of the objective world, they reflected in their painting, first of all, their own thoughts and emotions that arise in the soul when looking at nature. Cubism in painting opened for them such an opportunity as widely as ever before.

Varieties of Cubism

A new direction in art quickly gained popularity. Already at the beginning of the twentieth century, cubism in painting became fashionable. Cubist paintings decorated fashionable aristocratic salons and were sold at expensive commercial galleries. The artists of Cubism were already recognized by classics during their lifetime. The most prominent representative of this style is the famous Pablo Picasso. Cubism in painting is best studied by the example of his work. This style has passed several logical stages of development. And the latter largely largely rejects the original.

It's about analytical and synthetic cubism. In the first stage of cubism, the voluminous forms of the visible world were analytically decomposed into structural elements and simplest geometric figures. And at the final, synthetic stage of development from the elementary structural elements, something completely new was created, previously unseen by anyone. In the subsequent, on the basis of cubism, many new trends developed in the art of the twentieth century. First of all, this refers to expressionism and surrealism. Could not stay away from Cubism architecture and sculpture. The search for cubist artists found a lively response both in the public consciousness and in many other spheres of art: in literature, theatrical scenography and cinematography. The brightest trace of cubism has left in many kinds of applied arts, in all kinds of design up to the fashion industry.