Part 1— Introducing Cubism and Futurism

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© The Goodwill Art Service Ltd Series 5, Set 45

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GOODWILL TEACHING GUIDE — Modern Art

CUBISM AND FUTURISMIn 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.

Malevich, Englishman in Moscow

PART 1 — Introducing CubismA radical way of lookingCollaboration with Picasso First an austere analysisColour and collageThe Russian connectionManifesto of Futurism

PART 2 — Studying Cubist and Futurist art

Picasso’s dominanceUndramatic subject matterLéger and the FuturistsPower and movementAdoration of speedThe spread of ideas

PART 3 — Suggested classroom activitiesDiscussion and Experimentation,Texture, Charcoal, chalk and pastelsPattern, Shape, Lettering, Line and colour,Line and movement, Subject matter

PART 4 — Brief biographies Pablo PicassoGeorges Braque Juan GrisRobert Delaunay Fernand LégerKasimir MalevichAlbert GleizesMax WeberGiacomo BallaUmberto Boccioni Gino Severini

PART 5 — Looking at the imagesPICASSO, Les Demoiselles d’AvignonPICASSO, Seated nudePICASSO, Bottle of Vieux Marc, Glass, Guitar...PICASSO, Three dancersBRAQUE, Clarinet and bottle of rum ...BRAQUE, Still Life with Glass and NewspaperGRIS, BreakfastGRIS, The sunblindGRIS, Still life, table and chairDELAUNAY, Eiffel TowerDELAUNAY, The Cardiff teamDELAUNAY, Windows open simultaneouslyDELAUNAY, Political dramaLEGER, Three womenLEGER, The Three ComradesMALEVICH, Taking in the ryeMALEVICH, Englishman in MoscowMALEVICH, Musical Instrument and lampGLEIZES, Football playersWEBER, Rush Hour, New YorkBALLA, Abstract Speed - The car has passedBALLA, Spatial forcesBOCCIONI, Unique forms of continuity in spaceSEVERINI, Suburban train arriving in ParisSEVERINI, Still life with violin and score...

Part 1— Introducing Cubism and Futurism

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LIST OF CONTENTS

© The Goodwill Art Service Ltd Series 5, Set 45

INTRODUCTION

The Cubist movement was a revolutionary step towards ‘purifying’ painting. Modern artists had been searching for new ways of relating three-dimensional space to a flat surface. Instead of painting illusions of the ‘real’ world, disguising the flatness of a canvas, the Cubists sought to create a new optical experience. ‘Geometric painting’, as Cubism was first called, originated in Paris around 1907 with Picasso and Braque; but it soon attracted avant garde artists everywhere, in particular in Russia, where Malevich led the way.

The early Cubists took their cues from non-Western art and from Cézanne, who had realised that a new kind of visual image could be constructed. Picasso and Braque turned Cézanne’s laborious method of ‘facetting’ into a pictorial language of geometric shapes and interconnecting, small planes. They also fragmented objects, questioning whether it was possible to know what anything really looked like. To prevent their compositions from simply becoming ‘surface pattern’, they devised

Self-portrait by Pablo Picasso, 1907 oil on canvas, 56x46cm,Narodni Gallery, Prague

tricks to create a shallow ‘Cubist space’, on which forms appeared just below the canvas. They then added lettering and collage, both of which stopped the eye at the picture surface and, through contrast, pushed back the painted elements.

These pioneers were followed by Gris, Delaunay, Léger, Gleizes and Meitzinger. They all experimented with familiar subject matter — still life, figure painting and landscape. As the theory of this new movement was being debated in relation to all the arts, these artists also wrote about Cubism.

The Italian Futurists adopted Cubist pictorial methods and helped to spread them. The Futurist Manifesto — published in Paris on the front page of Le Figaro in 1909 — insisted that the art of the past should be discarded and artists should look to the ‘dynamism’ of modern, industrialised life. To this end, Boccioni, Balla and Severini attemped to convey the sense of speed in painting and sculpture.

Part 1— Introducing Cubism and Futurism

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LIST OF CONTENTS

© The Goodwill Art Service Ltd Series 5, Set 45

Introducing CubismA RADICAL WAY OF LOOKINGThe early years of the twentieth century coincided with many scientific and technological breakthroughs. The telephone, the motor car, the aeroplane (Charles Bleriot flew across the Channel in 1909) meant the world was shrinking and trade and cultural links were expanding. People were becoming more aware of different cultures and artforms, from African and Oceanic sculptures to Japanese prints and Islamic designs. It was the Spaniard Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) who initiated the completely new approach to painting that affected all later European art movements. Unusually, it is possible to pinpoint one work of art which signalled the advent of this new style: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Picasso had completed this painting in 1907 and having shown it to colleagues he turned it to the wall. It was exhibited in Paris in 1916, then not until 1937. It now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The painting’s impact upon those who saw it in his studio in Montmartre was startling.

‘Colour and texture in painting are ends in themselves. They are the essence of painting, but this essence has always been destroyed by the subject. And if the masters of the Renaissance had discovered the surface of a painting, it would have been much more exalted and valuable than any Madonna or Giaconda’.

Malevich, Essays on Art, Vol 1, p.25

COLLABORATION WITH PICASSOPicasso founded Cubism, although Georges Braque (1882-1963) had been working in similar vein, exploring the geometrical forms in landscape inspired by Cézanne’s work. (In fact, the term ‘Cubist’ stemmed from an art critic’s comments in 1908 on Braque’s paintings of the French countryside.) The artists collaborated and produced strikingly similar pictures. These are easily identifiable, with their totally flattened picture space, limited colour range of browns, greys and occasional cold blue, angular lines and, most strikingly, multi-viewpoints.

FIRST AN AUSTERE ANALYSISThus, Cubist paintings may be divided into types, ‘Analytical’ (1907-12) and later ‘Synthetic’. The first works of Picasso and Braque were austere and monochromatic, fragmented geometric forms within a flattened picture space. The artist is not looking at objects from a fixed viewpoint, but walking around them, from side to side, lifting, exploring, observing and recording perceptions simultaneously within one picture. It is as if the viewer is being invited to look through a one-coloured kaleidoscope, at a surface of lines, texture and patterns.

Its aggressive subject matter, angular, distorted planes, flattened picture space and references to grimacing African sculpture created a sense of revulsion, yet an anticipation of things to come. It is no exaggeration to say that during the next seven years before World War I, the concept of what modern painting and sculpture looked like was transformed. (Expressionism was happening, too, in parallel. See Goodwill set 44.)

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© The Goodwill Art Service LtdSeries 5, Set 45

Part 5 — Looking at the images