In 1909, Picasso and Braque redirected their focus from humans to objects to keep Cubism fresh, as with Braque’s Violin and Palette. The term wasn’t widely used until the press adopted it to describe the style in 1911. Painter Henri Matisse had previously described them to Vauxcelles as looking comprised of cubes. The term Cubism was first used by French critic Louis Vauxcelles in 1908 to describe Braque’s landscape paintings.
Thus began the first era of Cubism, known as Analytical Cubism, which was defined by depictions of a subject from multiple vantage points at once, creating a fractured, multi-dimensional effect expressed through a limited palette of colors. This portrait of five prostitutes draws heavy influence from African tribal art, which Picasso had recently been exposed to at the Palais du Trocadéro, a Paris ethnographic museum.īraque’s response to Picasso’s initial work was his 1908 painting Large Nude, noted for incorporating the techniques of Paul Cézanne as a sobering influence. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque first met in 1905, but it wasn’t until 1907 that Picasso showed Braque what is considered the first Cubist painting, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Though the movement’s most potent era was in the early 20th Century, the ideas and techniques of Cubism influenced many creative disciplines and continue to inform experimental work. Over time, the geometric touches grew so intense that they sometimes overtook the represented forms, creating a more pure level of visual abstraction. Cubism is an artistic movement, created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, which employs geometric shapes in depictions of human and other forms.