Cubism

Cubism

Cubism was a revolutionary art style and movement, invented by Picasso and Braque in 1907-08, that brought different viewpoints into the same picture.

The term ‘cubism’ was coined by the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who described Georges Braque's paintings displayed in Paris in 1908, as “reducing everything to geometric outlines, to cubes.”

Cubism itself was introduced by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in the early 20th century, marking a groundbreaking shift in representing reality. As one of the most influential 20th-century art styles, it’s widely recognized to have originated around 1907, notably in Picasso's renowned work ‘Demoiselles D'Avignon’, which exhibited early cubist elements.

In Cubism, conventional subjects like nudes, landscapes, and still lifes underwent a transformation into progressively fragmented compositions. The impact of Cubism reached across a global community of artists working in Paris during that era and continued to influence art beyond those years.

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Parra's studio, with Parra at the centre, his back to the camera as he works on the large painting takes centre stage, showing a faceless blue woman in a striped dress, painted in red, purple, blue and teal. The studio is full of brightly coloured paints, with a large window on the right and a patterned rug across the floor under the painting.