The Cubists

Cubism was a movement in 20th-Century art concerned with the depiction of objects and people through fundamental geometric shapes. Cubists distorted images by overlapping or interlocking shapes to represent different angles of subject matter. They rejected the realism and the emphasis of light and colour in conventional 19th- and 20th-Century Impressionist painting to adopt the technique of simultaneously portraying separate perspectives of subject matter. The name 'Cubism' was a derogatory term invented by the critic Louis Vauxcelles at one of Braque's exhibitions in 1908.

Cubism had a profound effect on the manner in which material was classically depicted, as the fundamental techniques used in painting had not altered since the Renaissance. In consideration of the influence it had over the development of art in the twentieth century, cubism is presently regarded as the foundation of abstract and subjective art.

The two artists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso were main contributors to the development of Cubism, working together from 1907 to the beginning of World War I in 1914. They drew much of their inspiration from tribal African and Oceanian art, which they marked for its energy and its inaccuracy in the depiction of subject matter. Another artist in the movement, Paul Cézanne, stated that "Everything in nature takes its form form the sphere, the cone, and the cylinder". Other Cubist painters that helped in the development in the movement were Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, Roger de La Fresnaye and Juan Gris. Notable Cubist sculptors include Picasso, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Jacques Lipchitz and Aleksandr Archipenko. Books that helped in the progression of Cubism as a movement were Cubisme by Albert Gliezes and Jean Metzinger and Les Peintres Cubistes by Guillaume Apollinaire.

Two branches of Cubism are Analytical Cubism, which developed in about 1910, and Synthetic Cubism, which began about the year of 1912. Analytical Cubism consists of an artist breaking down an object and painting the fundamental geometric shapes (particularly the cube and the cone) of which it is composed. In Synthetic Cubism, abstract artworks were created by the artist producing a mixture (or synthesis) of shapes. Early Analytical Cubists used soft greys, browns, greens and yellows to avoid naturalistic and emotional effects, but two years after Synthetic Cubism was introduced in 1914 Cubists began introducing brighter colours into their paintings.