Analytic and Synthetic Cubism

History of Art II. From 1400 to present

Maria Fernandez-Shaw

Final Paper Presentation

15/11/2016

Manuel Lladó Tiagonce

ANALYTIC AND SYNTHETIC CUBISM

• Introduction of the period, how it began?

We have assumed that most of the artworks we have seen, have to do with the surrealism, abstractionism and modernism in where landscapes looked like the real world, however, there was a time in where the painters need a way to express themselves, so they focused in objects. So, it appeared a new movement called Analytic and Synthetic Cubism, during this period painters rejected the concept that art should look like nature and/or use the same techniques of modeling, perspective and foreshortening. They wanted something new, they reduced and fractured objects into geometric shapes and with these making different points of view and also used a multiple different contrast vantage points. Finally Cubist painters presented a new realty in paintings that represented objects in which they were radically fragmented, whose sides were seen simultaneously.

This movement was originated in Paris around 1907, led by Pablo Picasso and George Braque. This movement was showed as a “new way of representing the world.” This movement was really influenced by the African Art, this wasn’t recognizable until 1914, in where people started to know about this movement, and started to spread around Europe, so, after painters started to be influenced by this movement, for example, a Spanish painter such as Juan Gris.  When this movement began, it evolved really quickly; because of the use of monocratic tone it gave away the combinations of words and images, bright colors and multimedia texture.

The French artist, called Louis Vauxcelles, gave the name “cubism” because after seeing the landscapes ‘artwork painted by Braque. Vauxcelles was inspired because of the geometric forms in the highly abstracted cubes.

As we said, two big painters, called Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, created the period of Cubism. “If we had never met Picasso, would Cubism been what it is? I think not.” A quote from Braque, which is trying to explain that they need each other to make this movement more influent.

The Cubism movement was divided in two phases; the Analytic (1907-1912) and the Synthetic phase (1913 until the 1920´s). The issue of this phase is to show the objects as how the mind sees them, not the eyes, perceives them.  The most popular period was during 1907 until 1914, in other words the Analytic Cubism.

• Analytic Cubism (1907-1912)

Most of the cubist painters are influenced by this period of time; the Analytical Cubism, this period began in Paris in 1907 and it ended around 1912. The meaning of “Analytic Cubism” is that there a technique is which you examine or analyze a subject and transform it into a figures, in other words, into geometric shapes, angles and lines. The main characteristics of the Analytic Cubism are: