Pablo Picasso is one of the most inspiring and well known artists of all time for all of his great accomplishments in the art world. Born in Málaga, Spain on October 25, 1881, Picasso started painting at a young age, and was even able to complete his first painting at age nine. As he got older, his painting style was constantly evolving. One of the most influential styles that Picasso took part in was Cubism. With Cubism, he created numerous amounts of artwork using this style that went against the aspects of traditional art, which makes Cubism an essential part of the modern art era. Picasso’s shift to Cubism has not been an overnight change, but one that has been influenced by many aspects, such as other artists, the discovery of photography, and his liking of African art. 

 

  Cubism was created by Pablo Picasso himself and another artist named George Braque. It can be generally described as a way of painting where the artist would break up the regular form of what they intend to paint and make it into fragmented pieces. These fragmented pieces allow viewers to see a painting from different angles and viewpoints, just like how they would have in reality. Cubism can be divided into two phases during its time: analytic cubism and synthetic cubism. Analytic cubism came before synthetic cubism and focused mainly on reducing forms into geometric shapes. These paintings were usually not focused on color, thus most of these paintings have mainly colors like gray and blue. Synthetic cubism, on the other hand, is almost the same as analytic cubism but emphasizes more on color, thus these paintings would have a lot more variety of colors (“Pablo Picasso”, 2009).

 

One of Picasso’s main influences for his creation of Cubism were other artists who were already performing some elements of Cubism before it even existed. One of his favorite artists that he drew inspiration from was Paul Cézanne, a French post impressionist who drew a lot of landscape and still life paintings. However, he also did some portraits where if one were to line them up, it was evident that he tried to discover his own interpretation of the human face. He was fascinated with the oval on each person’s face, so he often tried to look for ways to simplify shapes almost to the point of abstraction, which shows how he was often considered the bridge between Impressionism and Cubism (Mentzer, 2018). Therefore, Picasso, who was intrigued by this, decided to create a whole new art style where he attempts to simplify objects into geometric, fragmented pieces, just like what Cézanne attempted to do. 

 

Photography was also a major element that helped influence Picasso in creating and using Cubism ideas in his art. Photography was invented in the early 1800s, and the first photograph was taken in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. The invention of photography was revolutionary in my areas of society, including art. For art in general, people do not see it as necessary to paint paintings like Federic Church anymore because they now have photography to capture such sights. Thus, they are now able to branch out and be more creative now that they do not have to worry about capturing something on canvas that photography could accomplish. However, in Picasso’s case, he took some ideas from photography and incorporated it into Cubism. Picasso saw how a camera is able to take pictures at different angles, and each angle creates a different perspective of the subject he is painting. According to James J. Gibson, a Cornell psychology professor, visual perception relies on the way light affects the appearance of objects, and slight changes in position results in different sensations of size and depth (Mullen, 1998). This explains how any shift in location in a person results in a different perspective of something. This can be related to a camera in that each shift in location can be a separate snapshot, which creates a different perspective. Picasso, who was interested in this idea, decided to make Cubism contain aspects where many different angles of the subject or object can be seen on a canvas. Essentially, he is trying to create a sort of three dimensional artwork on a two dimensional canvas. This would explain why certain Cubist paintings show a subject broken into many different fragmented pieces. 

 

Another large inspiration for Picasso to create Cubism would be his exposure to African art. During this time period, European nations participated in the Scramble for Africa, where nations like France colonized certain parts of Africa to exert their dominance. Due to this colonization, African culture inevitably spills into France, which was where Picasso fell in love with it. When he first encountered African art and artifacts, it made him question a lot of the aspects in regards to Western art. He even noted that the African art he was witnessing would have a hard time assimilating into Western culture (Poggy, 51). Picasso would always tell people that African art influenced him minimally, but it was evident that it played a big role in his creation of Cubism. This is because it can be seen that he took some techniques he saw from African art, such as the masks, and incorporated these techniques into his paintings. For example, he would reverse concave and convex lines in a face or figure and reduce objects to geometric shapes, which are all factors that led to Cubism (Pennisi, 22). 

 

Overall, Picasso’s creation of Cubism was greatly influenced by Cézanne, photography, and African art. Due to these influences and his creation of Cubism, Picasso created one of the most inspiring and interesting art styles in history. Not only that, he played a pivotal role in changing how the world views modern art after many years of sticking to traditional art values. Picasso’s persistence and hope that people would loosen up and start appreciating modern art allowed for Cubism to eventually gain popularity. Over time, Cubism did become popular, and now many of Picasso’s Cubism paintings can be found on display all over the world. From his painting Carafe, Jug, and Fruit Bowl in the Guggenheim Museum in New York City to The Weeping Woman in the Tate Modern in London, Picasso’s Cubism art movement left a mark on not only the art community, but the whole entire world as well.