Cubism at the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.
Cubism, invented around 1907 by Picasso and Braque, who were soon followed by Juan Gris, was a revolutionary way of representing reality, far removed from traditional illusionism. The simplicity of Romanesque images, the geometry of African masks and, above, the synthetic paintings of Cezanne's final period were the main sources of inspiration for the new art. Replacing the natural world with a perceived world, the new language paved the way for a long tradition of modernity.
In an attempt to classify the revolutionary experiments made by Picasso, Braque and Gris when they were exponents of Cubism, historians have tended to divide Cubism in two stages. The early phase, generally considered to run from 1908-12 is called Analytical Cubism because of its structured dissection of the subject, viewpoint-by-viewpoint, resulting in a fragmentary image of multiple viewpoints and overlapping planes. Another distinguishing feature of Analytical Cubism is a simplified palette of colours, so the viewer is not distracted from the structure of the form, and the density of the image at the centre of the canvas.
In an attempt to classify the revolutionary experiments made by Picasso, Braque and Gris when they were exponents of Cubism, historians have tended to divide Cubism in two stages. The early phase, generally considered to run from 1908-12 is called Analytical Cubism because of its structured dissection of the subject, viewpoint-by-viewpoint, resulting in a fragmentary image of multiple viewpoints and overlapping planes. Another distinguishing feature of Analytical Cubism is a simplified palette of colours, so the viewer is not distracted from the structure of the form, and the density of the image at the centre of the canvas.
Synthetic Cubism on the other hand, began when artists started adding textures and patterns to their paintings, experimenting with collage using newspaper print and patterned paper. Analytical Cubism was about breaking down an object (like a bottle) viewpoint-by-viewpoint, into a fragmentary image; whereas synthetic Cubism was about flatterning out the image and sweeping away the last traces of allusion to three-dimensional space. This fragmentation and simultaneity of forms of Synthetic Cubism created a new dimension of anti-naturalistic and irrational space that raised the problem of the autonomy of art for the first time.
The works in this post are mainly examples of Analytical Cubism.
You can see more of Goncharova's work here and here
Liubov Popova, Painterly Architectonic, 1915
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