Cubism developed in the years between 1907 and 1912. It is a style of painting where different angles of an object are viewed at the same time. The major figures of Cubism were Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. In addition to these there were other important contributors such as Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Andre Lhote, Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes . Traditionally there are two phases of Cubism: Analytical Cubism which was developed from 1907 to approximately 1912 and Synthetic Cubism, from approximately 1912 until about 1914. Picasso and Braque brought cubism to its peak in around 1912. These two artists worked very closely together developing the stages of this movement. With Analytical Cubism the painting is made up of different views, it has a multiple perspective. In addition to this the object and the background seem to become one, everything is linked to one another. Colour was not used in a descriptive manner by the early Cubists and a monochromatic palette of greys, browns and ochres was adopted. Cubism only worked when the objects depicted were familiar forms. The viewer must know, for example, what a violin, guitar or bottle looks like to begin with in order to relate the various fragments of the painting to each other. Picasso and Braque also painted a number of Cubist portraits such as Picasso’s image of his dealer Kahnweiller. By 1912, Cubism had advanced so far that a point was reached where the next stage was to abandon the object altogether, and produce what we now know as ‘abstract’ painting. However, at this stage objectless painting was hard to conceive. Therefore, Synthetic Cubism was developed and trompe-l’oeil was introduced. This literally means ‘trick of the eye’ or an illusion, applied in order to confuse the onlooker. Synthetic Cubism was more decorative and theatrical, concerned more with humour than the serious Analytical phase. The artists began to add firstly pasted paper (papier collé) and then actual objects (collage). A flat piece of coloured paper could act as a shadow or a change in texture. Whereas something with words on, a visiting card, newspaper or label enriched the picture with associations, often becoming an ideogram or visual joke, for example, the first letters of journal were used to suggest joujou or jouet meaning toy or plaything. Actual objects were added to the canvas but often a piece of rope or chair caning looked real but in fact it had been painted. This technique made the distinction between painting and object ambiguous. With can see the influence of this on Marcel Duchamp and his signed ‘ready made’ pieces of 1917. Paul Cézanne is often seen as the ‘father of Cubism’, due to the large influence his late paintings played in the development of this technique. It was after the retrospective exhibition of 1907 that his influence is most evident. They saw that Cézanne painted not only the objects but also the space between them. This combined with his practice of overlapping brushstrokes gave his pictures an extraordinary degree of unity - everything becomes linked to everything else - known as passage. Many artists exhibited at the Salon des Indépendents where Cubism was officially acknowledged, for example, Delaunay, Le Fauconnier and Léger. Metzinger and Gleizes were also central in the development of Cubism and wrote Du Cubisme in 1912 and Lhote went on to teach the ideas of the movement internationally. Cubism was an influential and radical movement, it broke down all previous conceptions about how one should paint an object. It also had a major influence on movements outside Paris, such as Futurism in Italy, Suprematism in Russia and Vorticism in England.

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