In recent collages, I have been fragmenting the background to demonstrate some sort of dissolve between fantasy and reality. This new form that my work has been taking immediately struck me as a derivative of Cubism, which led me to this post. Whenever I begin using a term in relation to my work, I like to define it here on the blog (see earlier posts about the definition of collage, escapism, et cetera.)
Definition, per Wikipedia: "Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music and literature. The 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. In its second phase, Synthetic Cubism, the movement spread and remained vital until around 1919, when the Surrealist movement gained popularity."
My personal definition, through observation, would be that Cubism depicts a scene without the standard use of one-point perspective. The artist seeks to show the subject from multiple angles at once, resulting in the above mentioned fragmentation. For me, it is less about depicting physical perspective than mental perception of a situation (hope that makes sense!)
In reading about Cubism, I stumbled upon the term Synthetic Cubism, which is particularly exciting to me because its definition includes collage. "Synthetic cubism is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces, collage elements, papier collé and a large variety of merged subject matter. It was the beginning of collage materials being introduced as an important ingredient of fine art work." (See Wiki article here.)
I'm posting a well-known cubist piece below, as well as one of my collages that inspired this post.
Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, 1910
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