Cubism Futurism Van_Gogh Rauschenberg

Critique of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler's "The Rise of Cubism"
By: Tarek Fahmy

Cubism was mainly concerned with the explanation of form, "...the representation of the three-dimensional and it's position in space on a two-dimensional surface." 1 Picasso and Braque were both concerned with the ornamental attitude of art at this time and wanted to include their intellect with the process of art making. They concerned themselves with the process of seeing and tried to illustrate how priori concepts effect what we see.

Picasso tackled these issues by using closed forms; he still relied on the illusionistic aspects of art. He relied on color because he painted the skin of the objects by paying close attention to how these forms appeared to the common eye. By relying on color he still could not get out of the illusionistic aspects of painting. Color is a surface/latent illusion that depends on certain light waves hitting a certain surface to produce a distinct color. Moreover, the merger of skin and light to produce color is a magic trick that is finalized in the eye. Picasso and Braque wanted to understand the real mechanisms that lay behind vision and understanding. To understand these mechanism the artists painted how we see and not what we see.

Since light and color were illusionistic Picasso used them objectively. The use of light and shade was arbitrarily used to create forms and determine their relations with one an other.

" Color as the expression of light, or chiaroscuro, continued to be used as a means to shaping forms." 2

The subject matter of cubism wasn't important since all tangible things were made up of geometric forms. This lead to this style being labeled as 'Cubism' since the paintings looked geometric. The point is, how do we see the world? We employ these geometric (cubes, spheres, and cylinders) tactics to view the world (distance, depth, and horizon).

"They do not exist in the natural world, nor do straight lines. But they are deeply rooted in man; they are the necessary condition for all objective perception." 3

Picasso and Braque need to give Kant and his Kantian notions of vision and perception some credit. They are supposedly illustrating what we unconsciously do, break up vision geometrically. Then, the viewer consciously collects, through his perceptive senses all of the forms and their relation to each other. Finally, through the aid of another mechanism that the cubists employ, real objects**, the information passes through the imagination and enters the understanding phase.

Wow, talk about nonsense, conjecture, and bias; the basis for any legitimate scientific theory.

**They used real newspapers, wall paper, and other REAL objects in their work.
1,2,3 quotes from: The Rise of Cubism.

Critique of Pablo Picaso's "Pablo Picaso, Conversation, 1935."
By: Tarek Fahmy

Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler's The Rise of Cubism gave me an 'objective', outside view of cubism. It dealt mainly with the literary and theoretical of this geometric art style. It made Cubism sound like science and not an art form. I moved on and read Pablo Picasso's own words in his 1935 conversation and was struck by the obvious and deliberate contrast from Mr. Kahnweiler's views. Picasso was influenced by German Idealism but still maintained his subjectivity.

"We wanted simply to express what we saw."
"A painter paints to unload himself of feeling and vision."
" We have been tied up to fiction, instead of trying to sense what inner life there was in the men who painted them."

Call me old fashioned but I am glad that he still maintained some Early Modernist Bourgeois Ideologies. Both readings were extremely helpful because Picasso gave me the personal, subjective, and somewhat biased account. On the other hand, Daniel had to be more objective since he wasn't Picasso and wasn't a Cubist.

One statement that struck me because of it's irony and hypocrisy was uttered out of Mr. Picasso's mouth:

"There is not abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterwards you can move all traces of reality,...the idea of the object will have left an indelible mark."

Here he says that the only way for objective and worldly ideas to have a mark and seep into the work is for the artist to consciously start off objectively. After that, abstraction will never fully remove objective traces.

<<CONTRASTING QUOTE>>

"I didn't copy this light nor did I pay it any special attention,...my eye saw it and my subconscious registered what they saw...one cannot go against nature. It is stronger then the strongest man."

Here, Picasso says that nature, unconsciously, always leaves it's indelible mark on art. We live in it, we depend on it, and it' s all around us. From his quotes i feel comfortable in concluding that abstract or non-objective art has to have objective (natural) traces and origins. So, the artist doesn't always have to "...start with something." The artist could start with nothing, because even nothing is filled with objective and worldly traces. Picasso, here, contradicts himself. He does so because he was always terrified of the so called 'Decorative Arts'. Also, the few readings that I read about the cubists give the impression that the artists weren't fond of science and formula. Ironically their work is scientifically inclined and formulated.

Cubism Futurism Van_Gogh Rauschenberg

Pablo Ruiz Picasso
"Nu à la draperie [Étude]"
Paris. Summer~Fall/1907. Oil on paper. 31 x 42 cm. Private Collection, Tokyo.