Analytic Cubism

Summary of Analytic Cubism

In 1920 the leading promoter of Georges Braque's and Pablo Picasso's work, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, published his book Der Weg zum Kubismus (The Rise of Cubism). It would become the first authoritative text on Cubist history and practice and it was here that the term Analytic Cubism was first introduced. Cubism was a movement that ran for close to two decades, but historians have tended to single out for special consideration its two most important phases: the Analytic phase (1910-12) and the subsequent Synthetic phase (1912-14).

Analytic Cubism defines a style of Cubism that fractured the subject into multi-layered, angular, surfaces that brought still lifes and portraiture close to a point of total abstraction. Following a two-year period of experimentation where Cubist artists took their lead from the faceted landscapes of Paul Cézanne, Picasso and Braque retreated to the studio where, over the ensuing two years, they honed the style of Analytic Cubism. The cadre of Cubist painters, meanwhile, have been put by critics into one of two camps: the "Gallery Cubists", namely Picasso and Braque, and a "second tier", the so-called "Salon Cubists", namely Juan Gris, Jean Metzinger, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay, and Albert Gleizes. Gris, however, would command equal status with Picasso and Braque when the Synthetic phase came to the fore.

Key Ideas & Accomplishments

• At a time when Impressionism had "progressed" from the avant-garde into the mainstream, and Fauvism was ruling the Salons, Picasso and Braque instigated an avant-gardist movement that would all but insist that the viewer re-evaluate the status of art. Using multiple perspectives to produce images that featured only snatched glimpses of everyday objects, the phase of Analytic Cubism initiated a way of thinking about art that went beyond the limits of fixed perspective compositions.
• Analytic Cubism brought a higher level of cognitive engagement to art. In a conscious decision to distinguish itself from the seductive styles of the Impressionists and the Fauves, Analytic Cubism's preference was for a limited range of colors and tones. Excessive color would have only served as a distraction from a style of art that was intent of encouraging the viewer/reader to analyse, rather than simply experience, art.
• In order to keep one foot rooted in realms of reality, Analytic Cubism introduced into its system of geometric grids and planes what Picasso called "attributes". Attributes were the fragments or details of everyday life; points of illusionistic reference that made the image aspects of the image accessible (realistically rendered) and thereby stopping the work from drifting into pure abstraction.
• Considered to be somewhat deferential to Braque and Picasso, the so-called Salon Cubists were nevertheless instrumental in broadening the appeal of Cubism beyond an elite class of art critics. Important historical figures such as Delaunay and Gris employed some of the techniques of Analytic Cubism but brought to their canvases a more luminous and energetic use of color. Through works such as Delaunay's Windows Series and Gris's Pears and grapes on a table their contribution allowed for a more wistful quality to impact on an art practice that had become, in the hands of Braque and Picasso, a strictly analytical practice.

Overview of Analytic Cubism

Before Picasso and Braque had (seemingly) single-handedly reinvented approaches to pictorial perspective, Paul Cézanne had been the primary influence on the exploration of artistic form and plasticity. During the late 1800's Cézanne began to represent the landscape through spheres, cones and cylinders allowing for the various perspectives of the picture plane to lead the eye towards a dedicated focal point. As Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes wrote in Du Cubisme (1912), Cézanne's work, "proves without doubt that painting is not - or not any longer - the art of imitating an object by lines and colors, but of giving plastic [solid, but alterable] form to our nature".

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