Cubism, Orphism And Futurism Share A Common Language, Dynamism, And New Forms Of Transport And Communication

About 1909 the implications of Cézanne's highly organized yet revolutionary spatial structures were expanded by Picasso and Braque, who invented an abstract art of still lives converted into shifting volumes and planes. Cubism, developed by the artists of the school of Paris, went through several stages and had an enormous influence on European and American painting and sculpture. In sculpture its notable exponents included Picasso, Duchamp-Villon, Lipchitz, González, and Archipenko, who began to realize the possibilities of convex and concave volumes. Cubism was absorbed in Italy by the exponents of futurism and in Germany by the Blaue Reiter group; both these movements were cut short by the advent of World War I. Fauvism and cubism were introduced by members of the Eight to a generally shocked American audience in

Overall, the ideologies discussed within the articles Written In Blood: 20th Century Art by Stephanie Dudek and Estrangement As A Motif In Modern Painting by John Adkins Richardson address similarities and differences from various standpoints. Modernistic ideologies towards social, cultural and technological changes of the 20th century are demonstrated in both articles. The article by Stephanie Dudek emphasizes on the employment of radical and transgressive values by modern artists within their work to target cultural, and artistic principles that have persisted over many generations leading to a transformation within the subject of art (Dudek 105). Furthermore, modern art set out to obtain new visions of reality as witnessed within the Cubist

Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D’Avignon is considered by many to be a revolutionary breakthrough in the history of modern art. Demoiselles is a “great manifesto of modernist painting” as Picasso had abandoned all known form of traditional art, a radical break from the Western tradition that very much led to the Cubism movement (Bishop, 2002). What made Demoiselles revolutionary was that "in it Picasso broke away from the two central characteristics of European painting since the Renaissance: the classical norm for the human figure, and the spatial illusionism of one-point perspective" (Fry, 1966). Cubism had “destroyed […] the realist conventions for three-dimensional perspective which had been dominant in art since the Renaissance” (Butler, 2010). While generally credited as the first Cubist painting, art historians such as John Golding have argued that it was only a “starting point for the history of Cubism” (1958). Indeed, the picture predicates key characteristics of Cubism like the distortion and break down of objects and figures into distinct shapes, rather than being itself a Cubist painting. This analysis will concentrate on the elements of Cubism in Demoiselles and how it led to the movement.

Much of the passion for a modernist change in art can be seen to arise from a need to compensate for new conditions in modern experience.

Marshall Berman’s take on modernity is presented in his book All That Is Solid Melts into Air whereby he focuses on its issues and the cultural attitudes and philosophies towards the modern condition. In doing so he shares his experiences of modernity post WWII in New York in the height of an economic boom and then more specifically of his childhood neighbourhood, the Bronx. In addition to expanded austerity, industrial and architectural development, the end of WWII proved to be a key period in world history and by extension the history of art. A talented group of artists emerged in result that had been influenced by an influx of established European artist who had fled to New York to escape fascist regimes in their homelands. More importantly these artists produced art that was at the heart of maelstrom Berman describes in regards to his experience of modernity. I aim to highlight the correlation between Berman’s experience of modernity and the emergence of a new American modernism. Modernity throughout this period was broken into two different compartments, hermetically sealed off from one another: "modernisation" in economics and politics, "modernism" in art, culture and sensibility. It’s through the lens of this dualism in which we recognise that both Berman and these artists try to make sense of the world around them by making their individual expressions that would re-conceptualise what it is to be modern in the twentieth century.

The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Modern Art in the Van Vechten gallery at Fisk University accurately represents the modern art movements within the United States and Europe. European artists like Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Gino Severini and Renoir are featured in the exhibition. American artists like Marsden Hartley, Florine Stettheimer and Charles Demuth have pieces displayed as well. One can surely witness the differences and effects of European modern art on American artists and their work when visiting the exhibition. During the early 20th century, American culture began to redefine its ways of perceiving or experiencing the world. This affected artwork allowing it to become much more experimental and explore new topics or styles. American

During the years before World War I, European countries were involved in an educational, psychological, and social upheaval. Communism was on the rise and great thinkers like Sigmund Freud provided theories that led everyday citizens into the psyche. European society was unstable, as well as the artistic foundations that were weaved into the fabric of European society. The introduction of new ideas such as Cubism and atonal music gave way to even more radical approaches to art. Radicals with nihilistic notions who occupied the extremes of political and social views led way to a new type of artist. These artists criticized the deeply rooted concepts of art and even attacked the idea of art itself. These new artists appealed to the irrational

German Expressionism was a trending art movement from 1910-1940. The movement started in Germany, and after World War 1 spread outside of the country. The movement was focused on a few different themes: early on during Expressionism, painters rejected the old, conservative traditions and styles of art academies and instead used strong nonrealistic colors and distorted, simplified forms. This type of art was meant to surprise the viewer and evoke an emotional response. Another important theme was a strong interest in the enticing yet dehumanizing nature of the urban lifestyle. Nudity and sexually charged portraiture was prolific during this period. A huge theme was the emotional peace and comfort that nature provided for the soul. While this theme was present before the Great War, the psychological damage from the war led artists to seek the peace that the natural world offered. Other common themes include landscapes, portraits, and postwar politics.

Out of the collision of ideals derived from Romanticism, and an attempt to find a way for knowledge to explain that which was as yet unknown, came the first wave of works in the first decade of the 20th century, which, while their authors considered them extensions of existing trends in art, broke the implicit contract with the general public that artists were the interpreters and representatives of bourgeois culture and

Walter Benjamin looks into the shift in perception and its affects at the beginning of film and photography in the twentieth century. He writes about how a sense changes within humanity’s way of looking at visual works of art. Having its differences now and its consequences remain to be determined. Benjamin attempts to underline something exact about the modern age and of the effects of modernity on the work of art in particular. (Benjamin, 222)

I will be focusing on two of the readings; the Andre Salmon essay an Anecdotal History of Cubism written during Picasso’s time in 1912, and the David Lomas article In Another Frame: Les Demoiselles D’Avignon and Physical Anthropology. The Salmon essay, as the title suggests, focuses on the Cubist movement as it was understood during his time, making sure to delineate Picassos early work as Picassisme. Salmon recognises the novel aspect of Cubism as a way in which to depict an object holistically through geometric forms and “painting beings and things such as they are and not as our eye recognizes them…”. He describes the disjointed history of the movement and its artists, quoting Metzinger saying “Cubism is a means, not and end.” Salmon continues

Examining, reflecting and commenting on the nature of reality was key to the modernist movement. Modernist authors, poets, painters – artists of all kinds – were very concerned with notions and conceptions of reality, often exploring shifts and changes in reality in their works. The modernist period was characterised by shifting realities in other ways as well – as the concept was explored across a variety of art forms, many cultural and structural shifts were occurring within society. “Making it new” was the primary goal of the modernists – rejection of convention, whether it be the disintegration of belief in traditional political and religious power structures or the introduction of experimental, new literary devices and techniques, these

The cubist artworks of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso constitute a complete rejection of Renaissance painting ideals. Although paintings such as The Portuguese (1911) subtly depict commonplace objects such as newspapers and musical instruments, their representation on canvas defies the traditional preference for naturalism, modelling and linear perspective. In purposefully questioning these aforementioned principles, cubism is much more conceptually based rather than grounded in aestheticism. The chaotic fragmentation of objects on the canvas symbolizes the inherent difficulties of truthfully representing the three-dimensional on a two-dimensional surface, with the objects depicted appearing flattened and presented from multiple

The 1920’s became an iconic era in the world of art as it was a generation that revolutionized the way art was defined all over the artistic and expressive world. The artistic elements of the Dada and Cubist movements were combined and manipulated to form and create the Surrealist movement, which was primarily rejected as an art movement due to its abnormality and synthetic representation, but its iconic ideas and unique techniques paved the way for a new form of art where artists developed a new, appalling and unique style of their own.

In the span of the last decades of the 19th century, art in Europe began to focus itself on new developments in artistic practice. Exhibitions such as the