MY COLLECTION OF CUBIST PAINTINGS

Cubism was pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque independently in 1907; the former having created his iconic painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon which depicted human figures from several different viewpoints, and the latter studying Cezanne's technique of representing three dimensions from several perspectives. No doubt, their inclination was inspired by the late 19th Century "fourth dimension" artistic zeitgeist of speculating into the possibility of discerning all sides of a three-dimensional object simultaneously.

Though they collaborated in the development of this new 20th Century art movement, they each have their own distinctive style.  Braque emphasized facets in his paintings to dissect and reconstruct the essence of his subjects, whereas Picasso had more abstract leanings.

This first phase of Cubism between 1907 and 1911 called Analytic Cubism is largely a French development consisting of unemotional subjects fragmented and reconstructed to produce a crystallized geometry with intersecting and transparent planes.

The movement spread beyond France from 1911 to 1919 in a second phase termed Synthetic Cubism which featured smaller fragmentations of less formal subjects.

Cubism was Picasso's most and last true innovation in the art of painting.  Though his own Cubist period ended in 1915, he inspired later painters like Mondrian who linearized cubism in 1912 and went go on to develop pure abstract art from 1914 onwards.  Here lies cubism's unique place in art history - at the philosophical turning point from viewing art as an imitation of life to valuing art as an end in itself. 

I think they are the coolest kind of art paintings ever!  I particularly like its emphasis on viewing an object or subject from multiple angles at the same time, a prescient artistic equivalent to postmodernism and the current global inclination towards multiculturalism, pluralism and the celebration of diversity.  Its trademark feature of fragmentation and reconstruction of a subject to bring out its essence also points to an analytic approach worthy of imitation in other spheres of problem-solving outside the art world!