Cubist Iconography

 Three Icons of the Cubists  

       Focus-External Question 3.2      

 

Women (often nude)

     - source Neo-Classical art, originally the Renaissance

     - example Demoiselles De'Avignon 1907 (Picasso) , Gran Nu 1908 (Braque)

     - meanings: sensuality, feminine beauty, ideal beauty, old culture, low society (demoiselles=prostitutes)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Demoiselles_d'Avignon

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=80430http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pablo_Picasso,_1909-10,_Figure_dans_un_Fauteuil_(Seated_Nude,_Femme_nue_assise),_oil_on_canvas,_92.1_x_73_cm,_Tate_Modern,_London.jpg

 

Landscapes (sometimes the local landscape sometimes Paris)

     - source French Eighteenth Century Landscape paintings (Cezanne and Post-Impressionists)

     - examples Houses at L'Estaque 1908 (Braque), Nudes in a Forest (Leger- note this combines the iconography of the Nude above)

     - meanings: Natural environment, the country= peace and the power of nature ( an 18th Century Romantic idea), reference to Cezanne  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C4jcm-WYvg&safe=active

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2-95i4pq9g

 

Technology   (often the portrayal of objects of technology)

      - source technological advances of the late 18th Century in France

     - examples the Eiffel Tower series- R Delaunay, the printed material in Collages of Picasso and Braque ("le Journal"), most of the work of Leger

     - meanings: French technology and power (eg "Homage to Bleriot" the first person across the English Channel by plane), the glory of Modernity and Technology