Chosen Art Movement

Art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artist during a restricted period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or at lease with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years. There are so many art movements out there even I was shocked when I first started looking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_art_movements). I liked so many that I didn’t know which to pick in the beginning. Nevertheless, after much reading and understanding, the art movement that I have chosen to use is Cubism. My first impression when I saw an example of this art movement was “you call this art? What on earth is this!!!” However, after reading the picture’s caption and understanding what it actually means, this particular art movement opened a whole new eyes into a whole new world for me.  I instantly fell in love with this art movement that I would love to create my future project using this art movement.

Brief history, Key Techniques & Aspects/Topics of artwork

So, what is Cubism all about? 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, literature and architecture. In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled 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. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of cubism's distinct characteristics.

Primitive cubism (1907-1908) 
- Original style of this art movement, attempted to show objects as the mind not the eye, perceives them. They emphasized a flat, two-dimensional surface and rejected the idea that art should imitate nature, refusing traditional techniques such as perspective, foreshortening, modeling and chiaroscuro.

 "Everything in nature takes it's form from the sphere, cone or clyander." Paul Cezanne

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon - Pablo Picasso (1970)

Road near L'Estaque - Georges Braque (1908)

Vase, Bowl, Lemon - Pablo Picasso (1907)

Analytical cubism (1908-1912) 
-cubists explored the pure form of subjects. Artists mentally broke the subject into flat planes and arranged them in complex, overlapping relationships. Artists used only grays, browns, dark greens, ochre, dark yellows and monochrome in the works to maintain an emotionless scene. 

Ma Jolie – Pablo Picasso (1912)

Viaduct at L'Estaque- Georges Braque (1980) 

Synthetic cubism (1912-1920) 

- Usage of more colors (yellows, reds, greens and other bright colors) and pictures were more realistic looking but still were based on geometric shapes. Artists showed much view that would not be possible in real life.

The Guitar- Juan Gris (1913)

Propellers- Fernand Leger (1918) 

Juan Gris (1887-1927)

Birth name	José Victoriano González-Pérez
Born	March 23, 1887 Madrid
Died	May 11, 1927 (aged 40) Boulogne-sur-Seine
Nationality	Spanish
Field	Painting, Sculpture
Movement	Cubism

   

Bottles and Knife (1911)

  

Landscape with Houses at Ceret  (1913)

Still Life with Flowers (1912)

Violin and Guitar (1913)

Violin and Guitar is a magisterial statement that marked 1913 as the beginning of Gris's mature art. Here he combines the inherent dignity and poetic quality of the objects with an exploration of their three-dimensional aspects. An essentially cruciform composition underlies the whole and lends a hierarchical air; however, as with his use of the golden section, Gris was never absolutely precise in making his measurements fit a predetermined scheme. The painting is built on a series of pictorial rhymes among the forms of the guitar, violin, and glass. Gris's predilection for rhymes, or rhythms based on visual similarities, has been compared to the techniques of the poets who were so much a part of his milieu, but it can also be found in the art of his colleagues. More fundamentally poetic is the spirited flight of artistic manipulation that occurs in the central section, juxtaposed with the conventional world symbolized by the wood molding, wallpaper, and floorboards of a surrounding room. These background details establish a representational setting as well as a pictorial plane of possibilities. This richly detailed room should be seen as having fantastic associations for Gris since he reportedly lived in utter squalor.


Elements of Design

Lines:  Interchanging lines
Shape: Geometric intersecting at random angles to create shallow ambiguous space

Values: Light and dark colours give a mild contrast

Colours: Wide range of colours (depending on the type of cubism)

Analytical cubism: grays, browns, dark greens, ochre, dark yellows and monochrome

Synthetic cubism: yellows, reds, greens and other bright colors
Proportion: The figures are stretched, contorted and twisted.

Principles of Design

Balance: The images and shapes span the entire surface

Emphasis and Variety: No emphasis more than another. Usage of several elements of designs such as lines, colours, shapes and others.

Harmony and Unity: unified Visual harmony