Cubism

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.

Braque and Picasso’s artistic vision brought them to Synthetic Cubism, a movement in which they were joined by Juan Gris. Now, it was no longer about taking the objects apart; now artists set about creating new objects with new materials. One recognised new qualities for works of art, using the most varied materials, even items that were meant to be thrown away. During this period, the collage became a form of painting.

In particular, the artists now painted figures and still lifes. They no longer painted an object viewed from one perspective, but rather layered views from many angles in order to capture the subject from all sides. They analysed the object and brought it to the canvas as a fragmented picture. Shape and space melted into one another in one composition of enmeshed, intersected and dissected surfaces. Instead of creating volume, the painters focused on revealing facets and constructing surfaces. The situation captured in the painting became far more indefinite. Some surfaces became transparent, weightless or suddenly transformed themselves into a book or an instrument, something recognisable. With regard to colours, the paintings were dominated by brown, grey and blue hues. Additionally, artists no longer painted in the open air, but rather kept to their studios, where the arsenal for their subjects was already at hand. Later, they no longer arranged their still lifes so that they could paint from reality; rather, they created them out of the imagination, adding numbers and word fragments to the compositions.