2. HOW DOES THE ART OF CUBISM REFLECT
THE SOCIETY AND OUTLOOK OF THE
ARTISTS OF THE TIME AROUND 1907?
3. INFLUENCE OF SOCIETY ON
ARTISTS
• There was a push towards being modern.
A time of great change as people
embraced new inventions and people’s
lifestyles were changing. e.g., transport,
electricity, communications, factories,
people moving away from farms to the
cities (industrialisation).
• Invention of photography took over from
the needs of traditional art forms to
reproduce realistic scenes.
4. INFLUENCE OF SOCIETY ON
ARTISTS
• New philosophies and rise of
psychology. Artists could now interpret
the world communicating their
emotions, thoughts and philosophies.
• Artists no longer wanted to depict a
single traditional view in their art but
wanted to interpret their world
showing movement, time and multiple
views as if you were moving through
space, thoughts and opinions, a more
expressive response to the subject.
5. WHAT DID THE ARTISTS DO IN
THEIR PAINTINGS TO REFLECT
THESE IDEAS?
• These works stressed
the use of multiple
perspective (view points)
and complex planes
(flattened surfaces) for
expressive effect.
• The artists tried to
incorporate a sense of
time through multiple
perspectives, giving
symbolic expression to
the notion of ‘duration’.
6. WHAT DID THE ARTISTS DO IN
THEIR PAINTINGS TO REFLECT
THESE IDEAS?
The artists create space
and effects of multiple
viewpoints to convey a
physical and psychological
sense of the fluidity of
consciousness, blurring the
distinctions between past,
present and future.
7. WHAT DID THE ARTISTS DO IN
THEIR PAINTINGS TO REFLECT
THESE IDEAS?
• The subject was no longer
considered from a specific
point of view at a moment in
time, but built following a
selection of successive
viewpoints, i.e., as if viewed
simultaneously from
numerous angles (and in
four-dimensions) with the
eye free to roam from one to
the other.
8. WHAT DID THE ARTISTS DO IN
THEIR PAINTINGS TO REFLECT
THESE IDEAS?
• Imagine walking through
the city, looking up at
buildings and down on the
foot path and behind you
at the cars.
• The artists tried to show all
of these viewpoints in one
image rather form one
viewing point.
• The best known Cubists
were Picasso, Braque,
Leger.
9. ANALYTICAL CUBISM
Seated Nude,
Picasso 1909
The most famous Cubist
artist was Pablo Picasso.
In the early years of
cubism, Picasso
constructed his images
using small facets, or
geometric planes, and
represented objects from
different viewpoints.
Many critics of the period
believed the artist aimed to
represent reality in a new,
almost scientific manner.
10. ANALYTICAL CUBISM
However, as this
atmospheric painting shows,
Picasso could use this
technique for expressive
ends.
Here, the woman has been
all but stripped of her
humanity and appears
strangely mechanistic.
At the same time, Picasso
demonstrates his awareness
of tradition in her pose and
in the play of light within the
11. SYNTHETIC CUBISM
• Three musicians is a large
painting measuring more
than 2 metres wide and
high.
• It is painted in the style of
Synthetic Cubism and
gives the appearance of
cut paper.
• Picasso paints The Three
Musicians made of flat,
brightly coloured,
abstract shapes in a
shallow, box-like room.
‘The Three Musicians’
Picasso 1921
12. SYNTHETIC CUBISM
On the left is a clarinet
player, in the middle a
guitar player, and on the
right a singer holding
sheets of music.
Three Musicians is a
perfect example of
Picasso's Cubist style.
In Cubism, the subject of
the artwork is transformed
into a sequence of planes,
lines, and arcs.
13. SYNTHETIC CUBISM
Cubism has been described as
an intellectual style because
the artists analysed the shapes
of their subjects and
reinvented them on the
canvas.
The viewer must reconstruct
the subject and space of the
work by comparing the
different shapes and forms to
determine what each one
represents.
Through this process, the
14. SYNTHETIC CUBISM
• ‘The Weeping Woman’
was painted by Picasso
in 1937.
• It was in response to
the bombing of the
town of Guernica
during the Spanish civil
war to express the
suffering of the people
there.
‘The Weeping Woman’
Pablo Picasso 1937
Oil paint 60x49cm
15. SYNTHETIC
CUBISM
It is an image we can
all relate to.
The painting shows
multiple viewpoints,
flattened picture plane
forming coloured
shapes.
These effects allow us to
enter into the
overwhelming grief of
the woman rather than
just being a passive
observer.
16. ‘Guernica’ Pablo Picasso
Probably Picasso's most famous work, Guernica
is certainly the his most powerful political
statement, painted as an immediate reaction to
the Nazi's devastating casual bombing practice
on the Basque town of Guernica during Spanish
Civil War.
Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the
suffering it inflicts upon individuals,
17. This work has gained a monumental
status, becoming a perpetual reminder of
the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol,
and an embodiment of peace.
On completion Guernica was displayed
around the world in a brief tour, becoming
famous and widely acclaimed. This tour
helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the
world's attention.
18. DAVID HOCKNEY
In the early 1980s, Hockney
began to produce photo
collages, which he called
"joiners”, first using polaroid
prints and subsequently
35mm, commercially-processed
colour prints.
Using polaroid snaps or
photolab-prints of a single
subject, Hockney arranged a
patchwork to make a
19. DAVID HOCKNEY
An early photomontage was
of his mother.
Because the photographs
are taken from different
perspectives and at slightly
different times, the result is
a work that has an affinity
with cubism, one of
Hockney's major aims—
discussing the way human
vision works.
20. DAVID HOCKNEY
Some pieces are
landscapes, such as
Pearblossom Highway
#2,others portraits, such
as Kasmin 1982,and My
Mother, Bolton Abbey,
1982.
While working on a
painting of a living room
and terrace in Los Angeles,
he took Polaroid shots of
the living room and glued
them together, not
21. DAVID HOCKNEY
On looking at
the final
composition, he
realized it
created a
narrative, as if
the viewer
moved through
the room.
24. ASSESSMENT TASK IDEAS
• Each group must research and communicate
their ideas in the form of a poster on one of
the following questions:
1. How does the art of cubism reflect the
society and outlook of the artists of the
time around 1907?
2. How did the cubist artists communicate
their ideas through analytical cubism?
Use at least 4 artworks of the most famous
cubist artists to explain your research.
25. ASSESSMENT TASK IDEAS
3. How did the cubist artists
communicate their ideas through
synthetic cubism?
Use 3-4 of Picasso’s artworks to
explain your research.
4. How did the artist David Hockney’s
‘joiners’, photo collage works, reflect
a modern interpretation of cubism?
Discuss 4 examples.
