| Description | MB: Back to Cubism. It seems such a breakaway from the work of artists striving to paint things "as they were seen to be".
DH: Cubism is about going back to reality. Painting. Cubists were concerned with the many different aspects of a subject, more realistic than a fixed point of view. Portrait by Picasso. Distorting faces raises questions about "why?" because this would normally be the result of some deformation. Picasso recreated the face. This picture has an expression of anxiety and the hands are fidgeting.
MB summarises and asks why Cubists did not take people along with them
DH: They did. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). Progress was trial and error, not theory, and influences came from outside Europe. A mask by Picasso, influenced by African art. The movement had great influence itself. 1930s posters are influenced by Cubism, as were furniture and other everyday design. McKnight Kauffer poster, Magicians Prefer Shell (1934). Juan Gris’s Chessboard, Glass and Dish (1917). But "all the theoreticians of Cubism were lousy painters". |
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