Essay on Cubism Movement in Art

Cubism is an early 20th-century art movement that brought together European painting and sculpture towards the twentieth-century modern movement. Cubism was the first style of abstract art that evolved in response to the technological changes. The art movement comprised of artist wanted to revive the Western art. Artists opposed the conventional forms of representation, such as perspective, that had been in existence since Italian Renaissance and also moved away from realistic modeling figure. The main aim was to come up with a new seeing that reflected the modern technology (Genova). During this phase, the cubist pierced objects and figure by letting the space to flow through them and showing objects from a different angle. Historian argued that the innovation portrayed respond to the changing experience of space and movement. The second was synthetic which ran through 1913 to 1920. During this phase, cubist explored the use of non-art material s non-art material (Mines). Many questions have been asked regarding how the two movements reflected the issue of the time.

For more than four decades, there was an advancement in technology that western society was experiencing, characterized by different innovations. At this particular period, there were various inventions such as cinematography and photography among others. Artist faced big challenges as a result of these new technologies such as using reflecting the modernity of era using the trusted and tired tradition that had been in existence for more than five centuries. Photography at this time was a major challenge to the artist as it was now being used as a tool for documenting the ages and started to replace painting. As such, artists needed to raise up and counter this threat, therefore, a more advanced approach was necessary. Cubism became a new way of seeing things whereby possibilities of art were expanded the same way that technology was extending boundaries of travel and communication (Mines).

Also, the art world was not properly represented at this particular period, and there was a need to assimilate outside influences such as African arts, and this was a major issue during that period. The Cubist believed that tradition of Western art was no longer valuable since it had become exhausted. They embarked on the expressive energy of art from African art with the aim of revitalizing their work(Genova). African art had some social symbolism, but the Cubist was not in any way interested in such social symbolism but valued them superficially due to their expressive style. African art had elements that were regarded as subversive, and they could play an essential role in refreshing the tired Western culture. Paul Gauguin was an individual that inspired cross-reference art from various arts since his paintings were influenced by Tahiti, a native culture. As such, it is evident that cubism paved the way for non-representation art by emphasizing on the unity between a depicted scene and surface canvas (Karmel).

The essay has focused on how cubism reflects the issues of the time specifically focusing on the technological changes and lack of representation of artwork from different cultures. Also, the western culture was no longer valuable, and there was a need to refresh the tired culture. In the entire twentieth century, cubism had a huge influence on art. The most immediate and clear influence was on modern art that comprises of futurism, constructivism, and Vorticism.

Works cited

Karmel, Pepe, and Pablo Picasso. Picasso And The Invention Of Cubism. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press, 2003. Print.

Mines, Cynthia. Cubism. Detroit: Lucent Books, 2007. Print.

Genova, Pamela A. "The poetics of visual cubism: Guillaume Apollinaire on Pablo Picasso." Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature 27.1 (2003): 3.