Cubism

Georges Braque, Violin and Candlestick, Paris, spring 1910, San Francisco Museum of Modern
Art, an example of Analytic Cubism

Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement pioneered by Pablo Picasso and

George Braque, and later joined by Juan Gris, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay,
Henri Le Fauconnier, and Fernand Léger,[1] that revolutionized European painting and sculpture,
and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. Cubism has been
considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century. The term is broadly used in
association with a wide variety of art produced in Paris (Montmartre, Montparnasse) and Puteaux
during the 1910s and extending through the 1920s. Variants such as Futurism and
Constructivism developed in other countries. A primary influence that led to Cubism was the
representation of three-dimensional form in the late works of Paul Cézanne, which were
displayed in a retrospective at the 1907 Salon d’Automne.[2] In Cubist artworks, objects are
analyzed, broken up and reassembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from
one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the
subject in a greater context.[3]

History
Conception and origins
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907, considered to be a major step towards the
founding of the Cubist movement[4]

The beginnings of Cubism have been dated between 1907 and 1911. Pablo Picasso's 1907
painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon has often been considered a proto-Cubist work. Georges
Braque's 1908 Houses at L’Estaque (and related works) prompted the critic Louis Vauxcelles to
refer to bizarreries cubiques (cubic oddities). Gertrude Stein referred to landscapes made by
Picasso in 1909, such as Reservoir at Horta de Ebroas, as the first Cubist paintings. The first
organized group exhibition by Cubists took place at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris during
the spring of 1911 in a room called ‘Salle 41’; it included works by Jean Metzinger, Albert
Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier, yet no works by Picasso and
Braque were exhibited.[2]

Picasso became recognized by 1911 as the inventor of Cubism, while Braque’s importance and
precedence was argued later, with respect to his treatment of space, volume and mass in the
L’Estaque landscapes. But "this view of Cubism is associated with a distinctly restrictive
definition of which artists are properly to be called Cubists," writes the art historian Christopher
Green: "Marginalizing the contribution of the artists who exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants
in 1911 [...]"[2]

Historians have sought to analyze the history of cubism in terms of phases. In one scheme, a first
branch of cubism, known as Analytic Cubism, was both radical and influential as a short but
highly significant art movement between 1907 and 1911 in France. A second phase, Synthetic
Cubism, remained vital until around 1919, when the Surrealist movement gained popularity.
English art historian Douglas Cooper proposed another scheme, describing three phases of
Cubism in his book, The Cubist Epoch. According to Cooper there was "Early Cubism", (from
1906 to 1908) when the movement was initially developed in the studios of Picasso and Braque;
the second phase being called "High Cubism", (from 1909 to 1914) during which time Juan Gris
emerged as an important exponent; and finally Cooper referred to "Late Cubism" (from 1914 to
1921) as the last phase of Cubism as a radical avant-garde movement.[5] Douglas Cooper's
restrictive use of these terms to distinguish the work of Braque, Picasso, Gris (from 1911) and
Léger (to a lesser extent) implied an intentional value judgement.[2]

The assertion that the Cubist depiction of space, mass and volume supports (rather than
contradicts) the flatness of the canvas was made by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (as early as 1920,
[6]
) but it was subject to criticism in the 1950s and 1960s, especially by Clement Greenberg.[7]
Contemporary views of Cubism are complex, formed to some extent in response to the ‘Salle 41’
Cubists, whose methods were too distinct from those of Picasso and Braque to be considered
merely secondary to them. Alternative interpretations of Cubism have therefore developed.
Wider views of Cubism include artists who were later associated with the ‘Salle 41’ artists, e.g.,
Francis Picabia; the brothers Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Marcel Duchamp,
who from late 1911 formed the core of the Section d'Or (or the Puteaux Group); the sculptors
Alexander Archipenko, Joseph Csaky and Ossip Zadkine as well as Jacques Lipchitz and Henri
Laurens; and painters such as Louis Marcoussis, Roger de La Fresnaye, František Kupka, Diego
Rivera, Léopold Survage, Auguste Herbin, André Lhote, Gino Severini (after 1916), María
Blanchard (after 1916) and Georges Valmier (after 1918). More fundamentally, Christopher
Green argues that Douglas Cooper's terms were "later undermined by interpretations of the work
of Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger that stress iconographic and ideological questions rather than
methods of representation."[2]

Technical and stylistic aspects

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the European cultural elite were discovering
African, Micronesian and Native American art for the first time. Artists such as Paul Gauguin,
Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso were intrigued and inspired by the stark power and simplicity
of styles of those foreign cultures. Around 1906, Picasso met Matisse through Gertrude Stein, at
a time when both artists had recently acquired an interest in primitivism, Iberian sculpture,
African art and African tribal masks. They became friendly rivals and competed with each other
throughout their careers, perhaps leading to Picasso entering a new period in his work by 1907,
marked by the influence of Greek, Iberian and African art. Picasso's paintings of 1907 have been
characterized as Protocubism, as notably seen in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the antecedent of
Cubism.[4]

Paul Cézanne, Quarry Bibémus, 1898-1900, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany

The art historian Douglas Cooper states that Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne "were particularly
influential to the formation of Cubism and especially important to the paintings of Picasso during
1906 and 1907".[8] Cooper goes on to say: "The Demoiselles is generally referred to as the first
Cubist picture. This is an exaggeration, for although it was a major first step towards Cubism it is
not yet Cubist. The disruptive, expressionist element in it is even contrary to the spirit of
Cubism, which looked at the world in a detached, realistic spirit. Nevertheless, the Demoiselles is
the logical picture to take as the starting point for Cubism, because it marks the birth of a new
pictorial idiom, because in it Picasso violently overturned established conventions and because
all that followed grew out of it."[4]

The most serious objection to regarding the Demoiselles as the origin of Cubism, with its evident
influence of primitive art, is that "such deductions are unhistorical", writes the art historian
Daniel Robbins. This familiar explanation "fails to give adequate consideration to the
complexities of a flourishing art that existed just before and during the period when Picasso's
new painting developed."[9] Between 1905 and 1908, a conscious search for a new style caused
rapid changes in art across France, Germany, Holland, Italy and Russia. The Impressionists had
used a double point of view, and both Les Nabis and the Symbolists (who also admired Cézanne)
flattened the picture plane, reducing their subjects to simple geometric forms. Neo-Impressionist
structure and subject matter, most notably to be seen in the works of Georges Seurat (e.g.,
Parade de Cirque, Le Chahut and Le Cirque), was another important influence. There were also
parallels in the development of literature and social thought.[9]

In addition to Seurat, the roots of cubism are to be found in the two distinct tendencies of
Cézanne's later work: first his breaking of the painted surface into small multifaceted areas of
paint, thereby emphasizing the plural viewpoint given by binocular vision, and second his
interest in the simplification of natural forms into cylinders, spheres, and cones. However, the
cubists explored this concept further than Cézanne; they represented all the surfaces of depicted
objects in a single picture plane, as if the objects had all their faces visible at the same time. This
new kind of depiction revolutionized the way objects could be visualized in painting and art.

Important historical study of Cubism began in the late 1920s, drawing at first from sources of
limited data, namely the opinions of Guillaume Apollinaire. It came to rely heavily on Daniel-
Henry Kahnweiler's Der Weg zum Kubismus (published in 1920), which centered on the
development Picasso, Braque, Léger and Gris. The terms "analytical" and "synthetic" which
subsequently emerged have been widely accepted since the mid-1930s. Both terms are historical
impositions that occurred after the facts they identify. Neither phase was designated as such at
the time corresponding works were created. "If Kahnweiler considers Cubism as Picasso and
Braque," writes Daniel Robbins, "our only fault is in subjecting other Cubists' works to the rigors
of that limited definition."[9]

The traditional interpretation of Cubism, formulated post facto as a means of understanding the
works of Braque and Picasso, has affected our appreciation of other twentieth-century artists. It
is difficult to apply to painters such as Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay and
Henri Le Fauconnier, whose fundamental differences from traditional Cubism compelled
Kahnweiler to question their right to be called Cubists at all. According to Daniel Robbins, "To
suggest that merely because these artists developed differently or varied from the traditional
pattern they deserved to be relegated to a secondary or satellite role in Cubism is a profound
mistake."[9]

The history of the term "Cubism" usually stresses the fact that Matisse referred to 'cubes' in
connection with a 1908 painting by Braque, and that the term was published twice by the critic
Louis Vauxcelles in a similar context. However, the word "cube" was used in 1906 by another
critic, Louis Chassevent, with reference not to Picasso or Braque but rather to Metzinger and
Delaunay: "M. Metzinger is a mosaicist like M. Signac but he brings more precision to the
cutting of his cubes of color which appear to have been made mechanically [...]".[9][10][11] The
critical use of the word "cube" goes back at least to May 1901 when Jean Béral, reviewing the
work of Cross at the Indépendants in Art et Littérature, commented that he "uses a large and
square pointillism, giving the impression of mosaic. One even wonders why the artist has not
used cubes of solid matter diversely colored: they would make pretty revetments." (Robert
Herbert, 1968, p. 221)[11]

The term Cubism did not come into general usage until 1911, mainly with reference to
Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay and Léger.[9] In 1911, the poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire
accepted the term on behalf of a group of artists invited to exhibit at the Brussels Indépendants.
The following year, in preparation for the Salon de la Section d'Or, Metzinger and Gleizes wrote
and published Du "Cubisme"[12] in an effort to dispel the confusion raging around the word, and
as a major defence of Cubism (which had caused a public scandal following the 1911 Salon des
Indépendants and the 1912 Salon d'Automne in Paris). Clarifying their aims as artists, this work
was the first theoretical treatise on Cubism and it still remains the clearest and most intelligible.
The result, not solely a collaboration between its two authors, reflected discussions by the circle
of artists who met in Puteaux and Courbevoie. It mirrored the attitudes of the "artists of Passy",
which included Picabia and the Duchamp brothers, to whom sections of it were read prior to
publication.[2][9] The concept developed in Du "Cubisme" of observing a subject from different
points in space and time simultaneously, i.e., the act of moving around an object to seize it from
several successive angles fused into a single image ('multiple viewpoints' or 'mobile
perspective'), is now a generally recognized phenomenon of the Cubist style.[13]

The 1912 manifetso Du "Cubisme" by Metzinger and Gleizes was followed in 1913 by Les
Peintres Cubistes, a collection of reflections and commentaries by Guillaume Apollinaire.[14]
Apollinaire had been closely involved with Picasso from 1905, and Braque from 1907, but gave
as much attention to artists such as Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, Picabia and Duchamp.[2]

Early Cubism
Jean Metzinger, La Femme au Cheval, The Rider, Woman with a horse, 1911-1912, Statens
Museum for Kunst, National Gallery of Denmark. Exhibited at the 1912 Salon des Indépendants,
and published in Apollinaire's 1913 Les Peintres Cubistes. Provenance: Jacques Nayral, Niels
Bohr

There was a distinct difference between Kahnweiler’s Cubists and the Salon Cubists. Prior to
1914, Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger (to a lesser extent) gained the support of a single
committed art dealer in Paris, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who guaranteed them an annual income
for the exclusive right to buy their works. Kahnweiler sold only to a small circle of connoisseurs.
His support gave his artists the freedom to experiment in relative privacy. Picasso worked in
Montmartre until 1912, while Braque and Gris remained there until after the First World War.
Léger was based in Montparnasse.[2]

In contrast, the Salon Cubists built their reputation primarily by exhibiting regularly at the Salon
d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants, both major non-academic Salons in Paris. They were
inevitably more aware of public response and the need to communicate.[2] Already in 1910 a
group began to form which included Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay and Léger. They met
regularly at Henri le Fauconnier's studio near the Boulevard de Montparnasse. These soirées
often included writers such as Guillaume Apollinaire and André Salmon. Together with other
young artists, the group wanted to emphasise a research into form, in opposition to the Neo-
Impressionist emphasis on color.[15] Louis Vauxcelles, in his review of the 26th Salon des
Indépendant (1910), made a passing and imprecise reference to Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay,
Léger and Le Fauconnier as "ignorant geometers, reducing the human body, the site, to pallid
cubes."[9] At the 1910 Salon d'Automne, a few months later, Metzinger exhibited his highly
fractured Nu à la cheminée (Nude), which was subsequently reproduced in Les Peintres Cubistes
by Apollinaire (1913).

The first public controversy generated by Cubism resulted from Salon showings at the
Indépendants during the spring of 1911. This showing by Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, le
Fauconnier and Léger brought Cubism to the attention of the general public for the first time.
Amongst the Cubist works presented, Robert Delaunay exhibited his Eiffel Tower, Tour Eiffel
(Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York).[16]

At the Salon d'Automne of the same year, in addition to the Indépendants group of Salle 41, were
exhibited works by André Lhote, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Villon, Roger de La Fresnaye,
André Dunoyer de Segonzac and František Kupka.

The subsequent 1912 Salon des Indépendants was marked by the presentation of Marcel
Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, which itself caused a scandal, even amongst the
Cubists. It was in fact rejected by the hanging committee, which included his brothers and other
Cubists. Although the work was shown in the Salon de la Section d'Or in October 1912 and the
1913 Armory Show in New York, Duchamp never forgave his brothers and former colleagues
for censoring his work.[15][17] Juan Gris, a new addition to the Salon scene, exhibited his Portrait
of Picasso (Art Institute of Chicago), while Metzinger's two showings included La Femme au
Cheval (The Rider, Woman with a horse) 1911-1912 (Statens Museum for Kunst, National
Gallery of Denmark).[18] Delaunay's monumental La Ville de Paris (Musée d'art moderne de la
Ville de Paris) and Léger's La Noce, The Wedding (Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris) were
also exhibited.

The Cubist contribution to the 1912 Salon d'Automne created a controversy in the Municipal
Council of Paris, leading to a debate in the Chambre des Députés about the use of public funds to
provide the venue for such art. The Cubists were defended by the Socialist deputy, Marcel
Sembat.[19][20] It was against this background of public anger that Jean Metzinger and Albert
Gleizes wrote Du "Cubisme" (published by Eugène Figuière in 1912, translated to English and
Russian in 1913).[21] Among the works exhibited were Le Fauconnier's vast composition Les
Montagnards attaqués par des ours (Mountaineers Attacked by Bears) now at Rhode Island
School of Design Museum, Joseph Csaky's Deux Femme, Two Women (a sculpture now lost), in
addition to the highly abstract paintings by Kupka, Amorpha (The National Gallery, Prague), and
Picabia, La Source, The Spring (Museum of Modern Art, New York).

[edit] Abstraction and the Ready-made

Robert Delaunay, Simultaneous Windows on the City, 1912, Hamburger Kunsthalle, an example
of Abstract Cubism

The most extreme forms of Cubism were not those practiced by Picasso and Braque, who
resisted total abstraction. Other Cubists, by contrast, especially František Kupka, and those
considered Orphists by Apollinaire (Delaunay, Léger, Picabia and Duchamp), accepted
abstraction by removing visible subject matter entirely. Kupka’s two entries at the 1912 Salon
d'Automne, Amorpha-Fugue à deux couleurs and Amorpha chromatique chaude, were highly
abstract (or nonrepresentational) and metaphysical in orientation. Both Duchamp in 1912 and
Picabia from 1912 to 1914 developed an expressive and allusive abstraction dedicated to
complex emotional and sexual themes. From 1912 Delaunay painted a series of paintings entitled
Simultaneous Windows, followed by a series entitled Formes Circulaires, in which he combined
planar structures with bright prismatic hues; based on the optical characteristics of juxtaposed
colors his departure from reality in the depiction of imagery was quasi-complete. In 1913–14
Léger produced a series entitled Contrasts of Forms, giving a similar stress to color, line and
form. His Cubism, despite its abstract qualities, was associated with themes of mechanization
and modern life. Apollinaire supported these early developments of abstract Cubism in Les
Peintres cubistes (1913), writing of a new ‘pure’ painting in which the subject was vacated. But
in spite of his use of the term Orphism these works were so different that they defy attempts to
place them in a single category.[2]

Also labeled an Orphist by Apollinaire, Marcel Duchamp was responsible for another extreme
development inspired by Cubism. The Ready-made arose from a joint consideration that the
work itself is considered an object (just as a painting), and that it uses the material detritus of the
world (as collage and papier collé in the Cubist construction and Assemblage). The next logical
step, for Duchamp, was to present an ordinary object as a self-sufficient work of art representing
only itself. In 1913 he attached a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and in 1914 selected a bottle-
drying rack as a sculpture in its own right.[2]

[edit] Intentions and Interpretations

Juan Gris, Portrait of Picasso, 1912, oil on canvas, Art Institute of Chicago

The Cubism of Picasso, Braque and Gris had more than a technical or formal significance, and
the distinct attitudes and intentions of the Salon Cubists produced different kinds of Cubism,
rather than a derivative of their work. "It is by no means clear, in any case," writes Christopher
Green, "to what extent these other Cubists depended on Picasso and Braque for their
development of such techniques as faceting, ‘passage’ and multiple perspective; they could well
have arrived at such practices with little knowledge of ‘true’ Cubism in its early stages, guided
above all by their own understanding of Cézanne." The works exhibited by these Cubists at the
1911 and 1912 Salons extended beyond the conventional Cézanne-like subjects—the posed
model, still-life and landscape—favored by Picasso and Braque to include large-scale modern-
life subjects. Aimed at a large public, these works stressed the use of multiple perspective and
complex planar faceting for expressive effect while preserving the eloquence of subjects
endowed with literary and philosophical connotations.[2]

In Du "Cubisme" Metzinger and Gleizes explicitly related the sense of time to multiple
perspective, giving symbolic expression to the notion of ‘duration’ proposed by the philosopher
Henri Bergson according to which life is subjectively experienced as a continuum, with the past
flowing into the present and the present merging into the future. The Salon Cubists used the
faceted treatment of solid and space and effects of multiple viewpoints to convey a physical and
psychological sense of the fluidity of consciousness, blurring the distinctions between past,
present and future. One of the major innovations made by the Salon Cubists, independently of
Picasso and Braque, was that of simultaneity,[2] drawing to greater or lesser extent on theories of
Henri Poincaré, Ernst Mach, Charles Henry, and Henri Bergson. With simultaneity, the concept
of separate spatial and temporal dimensions was comprehensively challenged. The subject was
no longer considered from a specific point of view at a moment in time, but built following a
selection of successive viewpoints, i.e., as if viewed simultaneously from numerous angles (and
in four-dimensions) with the eye free to roam from one to the other.[13]

This technique of representing simultaneity, multiple viewpoints (or relative motion) is pushed to
a high degree of complexity in Gleizes' monumental Le Dépiquage des Moissons (Harvest
Threshing), exhibited at the 1912 Salon de la Section d'Or, Le Fauconnier’s Abundance shown at
the Indépendants of 1911, and Delaunay's City of Paris, shown at the Indépendants in 1912.
These ambitious works are some of the largest paintings in the history of Cubism. Léger’s The
Wedding, also shown at the Salon des Indépendants in 1912, gave form to the notion of
simultaneity by presenting different motifs as occurring within a single temporal frame, where
responses to the past and present interpenetrate with collective force. The conjunction of such
subject-matter with simultaneity aligns Salon Cubism with early Futurist paintings by Umberto
Boccioni, Gino Severini and Carlo Carrà; themselves made in response to early Cubism.[2]

Cubism and modern European art was introduced into the United States at the now legendary
1913 Armory Show in New York City, which then traveled to Chicago. In the Armory show
Jacques Villon exhibited seven important and large drypoints, his brother Marcel Duchamp
shocked the American public with his painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912) and
Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Roger de La
Fresnaye, Marie Laurencin, Albert Gleizes, and other cubist painters contributed examples of
their cubist works.

Cubist sculpture

Pablo Picasso, Woman's Head, Head of a Woman (Fernande), fall 1909. Bronze, height 41.3 cm
(16 1/4 inches)
Main article: Cubist sculpture

Just as in painting, Cubist sculpture is rooted in Paul Cézanne's reduction of painted objects into
component planes and geometric solids (cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones). And just as in
painting, it became a pervasive influence and contributed fundamentally to Constructivism and
Futurism.

Cubist sculpture developed in parallel to Cubist painting. During the autumn of 1909 Picasso
sculpted Head of a Woman (Fernande) with positive features depicted by negative space and
vice versa. According to Douglas Cooper: The first true Cubist sculpture was Picasso's
impressive Woman's Head, modeled in 1909-10, a counterpart in three dimensions to many
similar analytical and faceted heads in his paintings at the time. [24] These positive/negative
reversals were ambitiously exploited by Alexander Archipenko in 1910–11 and especially in
1912–13, for example in Medrano II.[2] Joseph Csaky, after Archipenko, was the first sculptor in
Paris to join the Cubists, with whom he exhibited from 1911 on. They were followed by
Raymond Duchamp-Villon and then in 1914 by Jacques Lipchitz, Henri Laurens and Ossip
Zadkine.[25][26]

Indeed, Cubist construction was as influential as any pictorial Cubist innovation. It was the
stimulus behind the proto-Constructivist work of both Naum Gabo and Vladimir Tatlin and thus
the starting-point for the entire constructive tendency in 20th-century modernist sculpture.[2]

[edit] Architecture
Le Corbusier, Assembly building, Chandigarh, India

The notion that Cubism formed an important link between early-twentieth-century art and
architecture is widely accepted. The historical, theoretical, and socio-political relationships
between avant-garde practices in painting, sculpture and architecture had early ramifications in
France, Germany, the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia. Though there are many points of
intersection between Cubism and architecture, only a few direct links between them can be
drawn. Most often the connections are made by reference to shared formal characteristics:
faceting of form, spatial ambiguity, transparency, and multiplicity.[28]

Architectural interest in Cubism centered on the dissolution and reconstitution of three-

dimensional form, using simple geometric shapes, juxtaposed without the illusions of classical
perspective. Diverse elements could be superimposed, made transparent or penetrate one another,
while retaining their spatial relationships. Cubism had become a influential factor in the
development of modern architecture from 1912 onward, developing in parallel with architects
such as Peter Behrens and Walter Gropius, with the simplification of building design, the use of
materials appropriate to industrial production, and the increased use of glass.[29]

Le Corbusier, Centre Le Corbusier (Heidi Weber Museum) in Zurich-Seefeld (Zürichhorn)

Cubism was relevant to an architecture seeking a style that needed not refer to the past. Thus,
what had become a revolution in both painting and sculpture was applied as part of ‘a profound
reorientation towards a changed world’.[29][30] The Cubo-Futurist ideas of Filippo Tommaso
Marinetti influenced attitudes in avant-garde architecture. The influential De Stijl movement
embraced the aesthetic principles of Neo-plasticism developed by Piet Mondrian under the
influence of Cubism in Paris. De Stijl was also linked by Gino Severini to Cubist theory through
the writings of Albert Gleizes. However, the linking of basic geometric forms with inherent
beauty and ease of industrial application—which had been prefigured by Marcel Duchamp from
1914—was left to the founders of Purism, Amédée Ozenfant and Charles-Édouard Jeanneret
(better known as Le Corbusier,) who exhibited paintings together in Paris and published Après le
cubisme in 1918.[29] Le Corbusier's ambition had been to translate the properties of his own style
of Cubism to architecture. Between 1918 and 1922, Le Corbusier concentrated his efforts on
Purist theory and painting. In 1922, Le Corbusier and his cousin Jeanneret opened a studio in
Paris at 35 rue de Sèvres. His theoretical studies soon advanced into many different architectural
projects.[31]

[edit] Cubism in other fields

The influence of cubism extended to other artistic fields, outside painting and sculpture. In
literature, the written works of Gertrude Stein employ repetition and repetitive phrases as
building blocks in both passages and whole chapters. Most of Stein's important works utilize this
technique, including the novel The Makings of Americans (1906–08) Not only were they the first
important patrons of Cubism, Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo were also important influences
on Cubism as well. Picasso in turn was an important influence on Stein's writing.

In the field of American fiction, William Faulkner's 1930 novel As I Lay Dying can be read as an
interaction with the cubist mode. The novel features narratives of the diverse experiences of 15
characters which, when taken together, produce a single cohesive body.

The poets generally associated with Cubism are Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, Jean
Cocteau, Max Jacob, André Salmon and Pierre Reverdy. As American poet Kenneth Rexroth
explains, Cubism in poetry "is the conscious, deliberate dissociation and recombination of
elements into a new artistic entity made self-sufficient by its rigorous architecture. This is quite
different from the free association of the Surrealists and the combination of unconscious
utterance and political nihilism of Dada."[32] Nonetheless, the Cubist poets' influence on both
Cubism and the later movements of Dada and Surrealism was profound; Louis Aragon, founding
member of Surrealism, said that for Breton, Soupault, Éluard and himself, Reverdy was "our
immediate elder, the exemplary poet."[33] Though not as well remembered as the Cubist painters,
these poets continue to influence and inspire; American poets John Ashbery and Ron Padgett
have recently produced new translations of Reverdy's work.

Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" is also said to demonstrate how
cubism's multiple perspectives can be translated into poetry.[34]

Cubism today

Far from being an art movement confined to the annals of art history, Cubism and its legacy
continue to inform the work of many contemporary artists. Not only is Cubist imagery regularly
used commercially, but significant numbers of contemporary artists continue to draw upon it
both stylistically and perhaps more importantly, theoretically. The latter contains the clue as to
the reason for Cubism's enduring fascination for artists. As an essentially representational school
of painting, having to come to grips with the rising importance of photography as an increasingly
viable method of image making, Cubism attempts to take representational imagery beyond the
mechanically photographic, and to move beyond the bounds of traditional single point
perspective perceived as though by a totally immobile viewer. The questions and theories which
arose during the initial appearance of Cubism in the early 20th century are, for many
representational artists, as current today as when first proposed.