Starting from Interpreting the Paintings: Reproduce Nature vs Represent Nature

More importantly, there is even a gallery specially dedicated to them two in which visitors can compare their artworks spanning from 1918 to 1941. NGA also pays such a close attention to this history of the development of Cubism as well as their unique friendship that the curators put Picasso’s Nude Woman and Braque’s Harbor, whose palettes and shapes greatly resemble each other, in the same gallery. Even though Picasso and Braque collectively spearheaded this movement stepping away from the traditional art which mimics the reality, they chose different, or even opposite, approaches regarding the notions of balance and harmony – the former intended to break them while the latter desired to maintain them in their respective works. In the early stage of Cubism, there were two isolated styles – one is Analytic Cubism which is highly abstracted and usually monochromatic, and the other one is Synthetic Cubism, a hybrid with Analytic Cubism and papiers collés. The other feature is that Cubism strives to stress the two-dimensionality of the canvas.

First, Cubist painters break down objects into planes which are usually rendered in one or more perspectives so as to create a three-dimensional effect without depicting the depth. No other modern style was the simultaneous invention of two artists in dialogue with each other.” William Rubin (1989), former director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, had an interesting comment on their relationship, “The collaboration between Picasso and Braque is unique in the history of art for its intensity, duration, and generative impact. For that very reason, it could be tricky for people to tell from their artworks created then. They visited each other’s studio every day to critique, encourage, and learn from the special partner during a long period of time. These two artists managed a relationship mixing friendship, rivalry and two-man excursion into the unknown (Masterworks Fine Art Gallery, 2017). Cubism saw a rapid development from 1907 to 1914 which was predominantly contributed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

Cubism picasso