CUBISM and FUTURISM in the Early 20Th Century Artists Were Trying out New Approaches to Express the ‘Modern’ Age in Which They Lived

Home , Albert Gleizes, Cubism, Gino Severini, Pablo Picasso, Three Women (Boccioni)

Part 1—GOODWILL Introducing TEACHING Cubism and GUIDE Futurism — Modern Art LIST OF CONTENTS

CUBISM AND FUTURISM In the early 20th century artists were trying out new approaches to express the ‘modern’ age in which they lived. The 25 images in this set survey the works of the Cubists, led by Picasso in Paris, and the Italian Futurists, whose ideas were ideologically distinct.

PART 1 — Introducing Cubism PART 5 — Looking at the images A radical way of looking PICASSO, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon Collaboration with Picasso PICASSO, Seated nude First an austere analysis Colour and collage PICASSO, Bottle of Vieux Marc, Glass, Guitar... The Russian connection PICASSO, Three dancers Manifesto of Futurism BRAQUE, Clarinet and bottle of rum ... BRAQUE, Still Life with Glass and Newspaper PART 2 — Studying Cubist and Futurist art GRIS, Breakfast Picasso’s dominance GRIS, The sunblind Undramatic subject matter Léger and the Futurists GRIS, Still life, table and chair Power and movement DELAUNAY, Eiffel Tower Adoration of speed DELAUNAY, The Cardiff team The spread of ideas DELAUNAY, Windows open simultaneously DELAUNAY, Political drama PART 3 — Suggested classroom activities LEGER, Three women Discussion and Experimentation, Texture, Charcoal, chalk and pastels LEGER, The Three Comrades Pattern, Shape, Lettering, Line and colour, MALEVICH, Taking in the rye Line and movement, Subject matter MALEVICH, Englishman in Moscow Malevich, Englishman in Moscow MALEVICH, Musical Instrument and lamp PART 4 — Brief biographies GLEIZES, Football players Pablo Picasso Georges Braque WEBER, Rush Hour, New York For easy navigation blue signals a link to a Juan Gris BALLA, Abstract Speed - The car has passed Robert Delaunay BALLA, Spatial forces relevant page. Click to follow the link. Fernand Léger BOCCIONI, Unique forms of continuity in space Kasimir Malevich Top right of every page is a link returning to SEVERINI, Suburban train arriving in Paris Albert Gleizes the LIST OF CONTENTS page. Max Weber SEVERINI, Still life with violin and score... Giacomo Balla Click here for a full list of Goodwill Art titles. Umberto Boccioni Gino Severini

1 Series 5, Set 45 © The Goodwill Art Service Ltd Part 1— Introducing Cubism and Futurism LIST OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The Cubist movement was a revolutionary tricks to create a shallow ‘Cubist space’, step towards ‘purifying’ painting. Modern on which forms appeared just below the artists had been searching for new ways canvas. They then added lettering and of relating three-dimensional space to a collage, both of which stopped the eye at flat surface. Instead of painting illusions of the picture surface and, through contrast, the ‘real’ world, disguising the flatness of a pushed back the painted elements. canvas, the Cubists sought to create a new These pioneers were followed optical experience. ‘Geometric painting’, by Gris, Delaunay, Léger, Gleizes and as Cubism was first called, originated Meitzinger. They all experimented with in Paris around 1907 with Picasso and familiar subject matter — still life, figure Braque; but it soon attracted avant garde painting and landscape. As the theory of artists everywhere, in particular in Russia, this new movement was being debated in where Malevich led the way. relation to all the arts, these artists also The early Cubists took their cues wrote about Cubism. from non-Western art and from Cézanne, The Italian Futurists adopted who had realised that a new kind of visual Cubist pictorial methods and helped to image could be constructed. Picasso and spread them. The Futurist Manifesto — Self-portrait by Pablo Picasso, 1907 Braque turned Cézanne’s laborious method oil on canvas, 56x46cm, published in Paris on the front page of Le of ‘facetting’ into a pictorial language of Narodni Gallery, Prague Figaro in 1909 — insisted that the art of geometric shapes and interconnecting, the past should be discarded and artists small planes. They also fragmented should look to the ‘dynamism’ of modern, objects, questioning whether it was possible industrialised life. To this end, Boccioni, to know what anything really looked like. Balla and Severini attemped to convey the To prevent their compositions from simply sense of speed in painting and sculpture. becoming ‘surface pattern’, they devised

2 Series 5, Set 45 © The Goodwill Art Service Ltd Part 1— Introducing Cubism and Futurism LIST OF CONTENTS Introducing COLLABORATION WITH PICASSO Picasso founded Cubism, although Georges Cubism Braque (1882-1963) had been working in similar vein, exploring the geometrical forms A RADICAL WAY OF LOOKING in landscape inspired by Cézanne’s work. The early years of the twentieth century ‘Colour and texture in painting are ends in themselves. They are the (In fact, the term ‘Cubist’ stemmed from an coincided with many scientific and essence of painting, but this essence art critic’s comments in 1908 on Braque’s technological breakthroughs. The telephone, has always been destroyed by the subject. And if the masters of the paintings of the French countryside.) The the motor car, the aeroplane (Charles Bleriot Renaissance had discovered the artists collaborated and produced strikingly flew across the Channel in 1909) meant the surface of a painting, it would have been much more exalted and valuable similar pictures. These are easily identifiable, world was shrinking and trade and cultural than any Madonna or Giaconda’. with their totally flattened picture space, limited links were expanding. People were becoming Malevich, Essays on Art, Vol 1, p.25 colour range of browns, greys and occasional more aware of different cultures and artforms, cold blue, angular lines and, most strikingly, from African and Oceanic sculptures to multi-viewpoints. Japanese prints and Islamic designs. It was the Spaniard Pablo Picasso FIRST AN AUSTERE ANALYSIS (1881-1973) who initiated the completely Thus, Cubist paintings may be divided new approach to painting that affected all into types, ‘Analytical’ (1907-12) and later later European art movements. Unusually, ‘Synthetic’. The first works of Picasso and it is possible to pinpoint one work of art Its aggressive subject matter, angular, distorted Braque were austere and monochromatic, which signalled the advent of this new style: planes, flattened picture space and references fragmented geometric forms within a Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Picasso had to grimacing African sculpture created a sense flattened picture space. The artist is not completed this painting in 1907 and having of revulsion, yet an anticipation of things to looking at objects from a fixed viewpoint, shown it to colleagues he turned it to the wall. come. It is no exaggeration to say that during but walking around them, from side to side, It was exhibited in Paris in 1916, then not until the next seven years before World War I, the lifting, exploring, observing and recording 1937. It now hangs in the Museum of Modern concept of what modern painting and sculpture perceptions simultaneously within one picture. Art, New York. looked like was transformed. (Expressionism It is as if the viewer is being invited to look The painting’s impact upon those who was happening, too, in parallel. See Goodwill through a one-coloured kaleidoscope, at a saw it in his studio in Montmartre was startling. set 44.) surface of lines, texture and patterns.