Cubism. Guillaume Apollinaire
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Braque and Pablo Picasso invented a new type of painting, expressing daily life in the form of real materials. For this, they used fabrics, wax cloth, wallpaper scraps and newspaper shreds, using these items to create fine art. This was the birth of their so-called papiers collés. The interest of Picasso in the tactile and in unusual materials found its first visual realisation in May 1912 with his piece entitled Still Life with Chair Caning. This painting showcases Picasso’s use of common materials in an unorthodox manner. The printed pattern on the wax cloth conveyed the illusion of chair caning. The pasted paper appears to be something else than what it truly is, while the rope framing it is a tangible object. Shortly thereafter, Braque found a roll of wallpaper with an oak pattern, which he then cut into pieces and integrated them into a drawing. These endeavours eventually led to pure surface textures being contrasted against one another and forming a coherent artwork.
Braque and Picasso considered their studio to be a place completely devoted to craftsmanship. Using everyday materials, they experimented with extending art into the realm of the ordinary. In 1912 and 1913, they chose paper as their primary medium. In order to develop their idea of a “popular iconography”, they used cardboard, paper of many shades and patterns, sand, combs, sawdust, metal shavings, ripolin varnish, sheet metal stencils, razor blades and craft tools. Apollinaire and André Salmon compared the efforts of Braque and Picasso with those of the poet François de Malherbe; the painters sought readily comprehensible simplicity, just as the poet had studied the slang spoken by the dock workers in order to enrich his own language.
The papiers collés were preceded by paper sculptures, first by Braque and later on by Picasso. Already by 1911, Braque had created his first paper sculpture. Picasso, when viewing the construction scaffolding of these first Braque paper sculptures, was reminded of the Wright brothers’ biplane.
Of all the artists of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso was a true genius. Like no other artist, he made important contributions and innovations to nearly all of the artistic movements of the 20th century. He journeyed to unexplored shores in the sea of the art world, and repeatedly produced surprising new masterpieces.
Pablo Picasso, The Pont-Neuf, 1911.
Oil on canvas, 33 × 24 cm.
Private collection.
Pablo Picasso, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), 1910.
Oil on canvas, 100.3 × 73.6 cm.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Georges Braque, Woman with a Guitar, 1913.
Oil and charcoal on canvas, 130 × 73 cm.
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges-Pompidou, Paris.
The Merit of Material
From ancient history until the end of the 18th century, artwork was evaluated according to its content. The material from which the artwork was made played a subordinate role. The premise was that an idea in its most complete and ideal state is immaterial; thus, to a great extent, the material is secondary to the idea that it is helping the artist to express. Materials were placed in the hierarchical order that was determined by how little they would impinge upon the purity of the artistic premise. Only in the 20th century did the aesthetics relating to materials take hold. Material justice now became one of the criteria for a good work of art, as materials rose in esteem.
Edgar Degas was a forerunner for the appreciation of so-called “poor” materials. At the 1881 Impressionist exhibition of the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, he displayed the Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, which he had completed between 1879 and 1880. The flesh-coloured wax figure, with her ponytail made of real red hair, clothed in real clothes-a flax bodice, a full white dress and ballerina shoes-shocked the art world. The critics called the figure a “young monster”, and said that it evoked the idea of a specimen prepared for a zoological or physiological museum exhibit. However, the critic and poet Joris-Karl Huysmans vehemently defended Degas:
All the ideas the public has about sculpture, about cold, lifeless, white apparitions, about these memorable and stereotypical works that have been repeated over the centuries will be toppled. The fact is that Monsieur Degas has knocked over the traditions of sculpture, just as he has for a long time now shaken the conventions of painting. […] This statuette is the only really modern attempt that I am aware of in sculpture with her living flesh shaped throughout by working muscles.
A similar view was expressed in the letter Vincent van Gogh wrote at the end of February or beginning of March in 1883 to his friend Van Rappard: “Tomorrow, I will get some interesting things from this rubbish dump.” Like Degas, he would dream of the collection of discarded buckets, kettles, baskets, oil cans and wire, and would mould these materials into art in the following winter.
In 1890, Maurice Denis reflected on the materiality and substance of colour, space and technology: “A painting is essentially a tarpaulin surface covered by colours in a certain order.” To support this statement, he cited one of the many works of Félix Vallotton, Les Passants (Passers-By), dated 1897. The frame for the painting is a reddish brown cardboard box with fine fibre inserts. At certain strategic points in the canvas, the colour is lacking, baring the graphic structure. In doing so the artist revealed the beauty of the material.
In the later works of Paul Cézanne, large parts of the canvas also remain untouched. The level of sensitivity regarding the material quality of the painting is thus reflected. In his Blue and Rose Periods, Pablo Picasso gave the colours their independence. The papiers collés were the next logical step.
Georges Braque, Man with a Pipe, 1912.
Glued paper on Ingres paper and charcoal, 62 × 48.6 cm.
Kunstmuseum, Basel.
The themes and techniques of popular art influenced the development of modernist art. The avant-garde pioneers systematically acquired new sources of inspiration and the categorical separation between art, folk art and anti-art was lifted. Theodore Adorno specifically warned against comparing the insights of the modernist movement to similarities with older art. Only through the deliberate artistic use of techniques and material would the work become more than mere handicraft. He added that only when Braque and Picasso first pasted pieces of paper in the papiers collés did this have the intellectual spark that surpassed the effect and dexterity of previous expressions.
Georges Braque, Fruit Basket, Bottle and Glass, 1912.
Glued paper and charcoal, 62 × 46 cm.
Private collection.
Pablo Picasso, Still-Life with Chair Caning, 1912.
Oil on polished canvas wrapped with rope, 29 × 37 cm.
Musée Picasso, Paris.
Marcel Duchamp, The Bride, 1912.
Oil on canvas, 89.5 × 55.6 cm.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.
Marcel Duchamp, The Passage from the Virgin to the Bride, 1912.
Oil on canvas, 59.4 × 54 cm.
Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Albert Gleizes, Brooklyn Bridge, 1915.
Oil on canvas.
Private collection.
The themes and techniques of popular art influenced the development of modernist art. The avant-garde