Cubism through the Ages
The birth of every distinct art movement has floored criticism in one way or the other, many condescending remarks helping coin the movements’ name. One such example was the Cubist movement, a phrase for ‘cubes or geometric schemes’ and an alleged insult by a critic towards a painting by Georges Braque. Emerging as a successor of Fauvism, Cubism was known as the most influential Avante Garde movement of the 20th century, which originated in Paris. It was pioneered in 1907 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque that continued till 1921. Cubism surfaced from the idea of widening the definition of art, making it broader than just painting naturalistic environments. Initially, Picasso and Braque aimed at representing depth in their paintings through the use of multiple perspectives in addition to sharp angles. Later on, Cubism inculcated collaging and typographic elements to give context to the subjects, the surroundings and the themes of the artwork through words. It kept growing with artists like Juan Fris, Fernand Léger and Piet Mondrian. Alongside, a group of painters in France redefined Cubism by making the surface look flatter, hence detaching from the idea of volume. Cubism was spread by the ideals of many different painters through apprenticeships taken up by patrons.
The downfall of the first Avante Garde movement called Fauvism can be owed to the artists not keeping up with the singular style of the rough brush strokes and vivid colours. But it was an integral precursor of Cubism, as it paved the way to an artform that broke redundancy through its disparate geometric forms and perspectives. Post-Cubism, with World War 1 emerged problems that needed vocalisation. Dadaism arose an ‘anti-art movement’ that took centre stage by creating art that shattered conventions to challenge the bourgeois society of that period. It was justifiable for Dada to emerge out as an additional Avant-Garde movement. Had this not begun, the art community would have remained unchallenged, restricting themselves to the notions of ideal body types and realist ways of painting surroundings. During the 1900s to 1925s in India, the Bengal School of Art was predominantly the most functional art school. My first encounter with Cubism was through the works of Gaganendranath Tagore, an Indian Contemporary artist. During his experimentations with several foreign art movements, he worked upon cubist paintings like 'The Magician' and 'Dwarkapuri'. They had distinctive angles, striking planes and chiaroscuro features commonly observed in a Cubist painting. Though he tried to popularise the idea of using abstraction and finding meaning in formless creations, Indians couldn't accept this shift. They found it unoriginal and not aligned with the Indian cultures and surroundings.
Personally, an art movement is a unifying act of changing ideals and representations of its definition, concerning the painters' milieux. It only starts to make waves when several artists converge and adapt to those ideals, vocalising the need of the movement. Some opinions deny Cubism being an art movement as it had never produced any agreed manifesto. With the differences in the painters' social environment, the narrative kept on changing. Cubism could be considered a movement as it broke precepts and encouraged people to look beyond reality, opening doors for surrealism that dealt with the subconscious. It's still apparent in today's world, Design being one of the fields it has reflected on most. People have adapted to trending Poly Art, Mosaics, Geometrical UI shapes, hard angles, multiple perspectives in their designs.
Though Cubism may have disintegrated from what Picasso and Braque had initially imagined it to be, yet it continues to live on unfolding newer possibilities of its application with the current times' needs.
