Beginner's guide

Cubism is a terrible name. Except for a very brief moment, the style has nothing to do with cubes.

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How to paint like Pablo Picasso (Cubism)
How to paint like Pablo Picasso (Cubism)

Learn how to paint in the Cubist style of artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

Cubist Sculpture II
Cubist Sculpture II

Cubist sculpture challenged the European sculptural tradition in terms of form, media, and often subject matter.

Pablo Picasso, <em>Three Women</em>
Pablo Picasso, Three Women

Maintaining a precarious balance between representation and abstraction, Picasso and Braque saw themselves as pursuing a daring and dangerous course.

The Cubist City – Robert Delaunay and Fernand Léger
The Cubist City – Robert Delaunay and Fernand Léger

Delaunay and Léger used Cubism’s abstract language of fractured forms and spatial dislocations to express the modern urban experience.

Salon Cubism
Salon Cubism

Cubism claimed to represent the modern world in new, specifically modern ways.

Georges Braque, <em>Violin and Palette</em>
Georges Braque, Violin and Palette

Despite its often baffling innovations, one of the defining features of Cubism is its engagement with the Western painting tradition.

Pablo Picasso, <em>The Three Musicians</em>
Pablo Picasso, The Three Musicians

Three Musicians looks like a collage made from cut out pieces of colored paper — but it is an oil painting.

Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso: Two Cubist Musicians
Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso: Two Cubist Musicians

When we consider what a Cubist painting represents we engage in an intellectual or conceptual activity rather than a merely perceptual or visual one.

Cubism and multiple perspectives
Cubism and multiple perspectives

This use of multiple perspectives was a hallmark of the Cubist style, but Braque and Picasso never explained why they employed this technique.

Pablo Picasso, <em>Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler</em>
Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler

Picasso’s portrait of Kahnweiler presents the essential innovations of Analytic Cubism.

Cubist Sculpture I
Cubist Sculpture I

Guitar demonstrates the breakdown between art and life that becomes a key theme of twentieth-century sculpture.

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