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by Tamara Hunter, Staff Writer
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History
Cubism has had a tremendous impact on art history. Two famous artists, Pablo
Picasso and Georges Braque, who were influenced by
Fauvism, are credited
with starting Cubism in 1908. The root of the word Cubism, "cube", describes its
general idea: an object is depicted by "cubing" it or breaking it down into
essential shapes. Those shapes are then rearranged into an abstract
composition-often depicting more than one perspective of the same view. With
the experimentation of Cubism, artists began to play with other techniques, like
collage.
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Subject
Although classic cubist works were often
still lifes and
portraits,
cubism gradually embraced many unique characteristics. Artists
in America combined cubist composition techniques with a colorful sense of
jazz rhythms
and the urban industrial scene.
In David Martin's oil on canvas,
"Italianate Tumble II",
we see a house as the subject matter.
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Common Motifs
True to cubism, the painting shows a variety of perspectives, often misaligned.
Shapes in cubist paintings not only allow the painter to play with our perception of two and three dimensional
spaces, but the formal language of Cubism also expresses psychological and conceptual concerns.
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Composition
The composition contains a mixture of forms reduced down to basic shapes. By interweaving fractured shapes that jump and recede from jagged planes, Cubists challenge the notion of what a
painting is. Hence, they create a tension between a representation of three-dimensional space and a painting as a flat
two-dimensional design on the canvas's surface.
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Color
Although early cubists paintings were often reduced to a monochrome of brown tones, the use of collage and found
materials allowed cubists to reintroduce color into their work. David Martin's painting's colors practically sing.
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Brushstrokes
Brush strokes range from being assertive and bold to chiaroscuro, or soft shading of light and dark. Whatever the
painterly style of the artist, the Cubists' mark serves to give both energy and form to their subject
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Other QuickSketches:
Naïve/folk art,
Realism,
Impressionism,
Expressionism,
Surrealism,
Pop Art,
Minimalism, and
Abstract Art
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