Cubism and Modernism

Cubism grew out of the efforts of Picasso, Braque and others, whose work is explored here, to replace the Impressionist concentration on the surface of objects with a more intellectual concept of color and form, an attempt to express the idea of an object rather than to give any one view of it. Of course the name Cubism was disparaging, for the movement gave rise to just as much opposition as Impressionism had encountered earlier. Cubism has generally been seen as the most important influence in twentieth-century art, solely because of its technical and formal aspects; but perhaps this view ignores some of its other features, particularly its realism. Were these just as influential as its form and technique?

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