Cubism and Early European Abstraction


Below is a site which is a good place to start and an intro. to early Cubism and Abstraction 

 

 

http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/cubism/

 

http://www.elrelojdesol.com/zoomable-paintings/pablo-ruiz-picasso/index2.htm there's a couple of works that you can zoom in on at this website

 

A Comparison  

When you look at later work of George Braque and Pablo Picasso, notice that Braque kept more to the original spirit of Cubism while Picasso wandered on to other things. Compare Terrace of Hotel Mistral by Braque with Picasso's Musicians (Below). When you look even later in his career you see Picasso making fierce political attacks on Fascism (In Guernica-see below)

                        

 

Three Musicians 1921                                                                                     Terrace of Hotel Mistral 1907 - Braque
Oil on canvas - 200.7 x 222.9 cm                                                                      Oil on canvas
                                                                                                                     80 x 61 cm
 
now look at this in relation to something that Braque did four years later: (below)
 
 

 

Verre et Plat de Pommes (Glass and Plate of apples) 1925 George Braque
 
 
 

 

And now for something that has become a political icon of Twentieth Century political art:

 

 

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Guernica by Picasso 1937 
This is a very powerful attack on the bombing of a little village by Franco, the Spanish Fascist leader, when his forces wanted to use the air power of Hitler's dive bombers...
 
...And If you think art is irrelevant, look at the quote I found about the effect of this work (or a reproduction of it) in the 21st Century.   
 
In an act with extraordinary historical resonance, United Nations officials covered up a tapestry reproduction of Pablo Picasso’s anti-war mural “Guernica” during US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 5 presentation of the American case for war against Iraq.
 
Picasso’s painting commemorates a small Basque village bombed by German forces in April 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. The painter, in desolate black, white and grey, depicts a nightmarish scene of men, women, children and animals under bombardment. The twisted, writhing forms include images of a screaming mother holding a dead child, a corpse with wide-open eyes and a gored horse. Art historian Herbert Read described the work as “a cry of outrage and horror amplified by a great genius.”
http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2009/03/25 (source)
 
follow the link

The Three Stages of Cubism