Analytical Cubism
By: Neal McLaughlin

Art: the freedom to express one's views of the world without fear of condemnation or ridicule. Art is subjective; what may evoke the emotions in one viewer may have little or no impact at all upon another.

It is this freedom of self-expression that continually moves art into new directions. Each art movement is to some degree, influenced by the preceding movement and in turn influences the next movement. By building upon the style and techniques of former movements, practicing artists are able to enhance and update these trends into a new and exciting era in the next art movement.

Generally, it is difficult to foresee exactly how much influence a new movement will have upon current artistic trends. Some schools will be followed and practiced for generations while others such as Optic Art and Symbolism will reign for a short period of time before stepping aside to a newer camp.

However, every so often a school evolves which not only dominates the art community, but will also be so innovative that it will have a profound impact in changing the art world entirely.

When painters Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Georges Braque (1882-1963) combined their ideas and talents at the beginning of the 20th Century they would be accredited with creating a movement that would continue to reverberate throughout the twentieth-century.

Inspired and influenced by the works of Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) Picasso and Braque adopted his quest of searching their subjects for the basic geometric shapes. While Cézanne was dedicated to applying this technique to his landscape renderings, Paul and Georges concentrated their applications to their individual subject matters.

The general idea behind Cubism is to take a subject matter and then smash it to smithereens, figuratively speaking, analyze the fragments and then use one's imagination to reassemble the sharp-edged, geometrical shapes.

The practice of the Cubists was to abandon the traditional techniques of artistic composition and instead, depict the subject matter in a two-dimensional plane void of form and space where it was then possible to view the subject from many different angles at the same time.

Although the Cubism movement was relatively short-lived, (1907-1914) it would experience one offshoot, (Synthetic Cubism: to which the artists, including Picasso and Braque would abandon their more subdued palettes for brighter colors, enhancing shapes, stenciling and collage.) as well as influencing at least six future movements.

The world of art has and always will be a land of enchantment, excitement and magic.

This is a world where one can apply his or her own creative ideas without the fear of being labeled or judged. Art allows us to be free. Free to openly pursue our dreams without limitations and with endless possibilities.