Cubism and early abstraction: c. 1907 – 1935

The Spaniard Picasso changed the way we see the world. He could draw with academic perfection at a very young age but he gave it up in order to create a language of representation suited to the modern world. Together with the French artist George Braque, Picasso undertook an analysis of form and vision that would inspire radical new visual forms across Europe and in America. This tutorial explains the underlying principles of Cubism and the abstract experiments that followed including Italian Futurism, Russian Suprematism, and the Dutch movement, de Stijl.

Malevich believed that artists, and art, could pave the way to a better future. But would they?

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Picasso was a technically skilled draftsman—so why did he choose to take his forms apart?

Pablo Picasso and the new language of ...

Why are you looking at splashes on a canvas? Math, music, and WWI are just some of many possible answers.

The Case for Abstraction

Giacomo Balla, Street Light (detail), c. 1910-11 (dated on painting 1909), oil on canvas, 174.7 x 114.7 cm (The Museum of Modern Art, New York) — Rejecting traditional subject matter, Balla paints an object that is forthrightly modern and technological.

Giacomo Balla, Street Light

Can color just be color, rather than representing something else? Step into Mondrian’s studio to find out.

TateShots: Piet Mondrian

Mondrian believed that abstraction provided a truer picture of reality than illusionistic depictions of objects.

Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow

Robert Delaunay, Simultaneous Contrasts: Sun and Moon — Why did Delaunay date this painting 1912 when it was actually made in 1913?

Robert Delaunay, Simultaneous Contrasts: Sun and Moon

Fernand Léger, Contrast of Forms — Léger’s rough paint and unfinished canvas ensure we won’t forget we’re looking at a painting.

Fernand Léger, Contrast of Forms

Pablo Picasso, The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro - detail — Ostensibly a landscape, this painting has little to do with nature.

Pablo Picasso, The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro

Pablo Picasso, Guitar (detail) — Picasso represents a guitar in three-dimensions, but he doesn’t actually make one.

Pablo Picasso, Guitar

Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Horse, 1914, bronze, 39-3/8 x 24 x 36 inches (99 x 61 x 91.4 cm) (Art Institute of Chicago) — The artist completed this sculpture during World War I, shortly before he died.

Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Horse

Amedeo Modigliani, Young Woman in a Shirt - detail — “Wearing” would be much too strong a word for this woman’s relationship to her shirt.

Amedeo Modigliani, Young Woman in a Shirt

Georges Braque, Le Viaduc à L'Estaque - detail — An homage to Cézanne, but also a reaction to having seen Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Braque is exploring.

Georges Braque, Le Viaduc à L’Estaque, (The ...

Piet Mondrian, Composition No. II, with Red and Blue, oil on canvas, 1929 (original date partly obliterated; mistakenly repainted 1925 by Mondrian). oil on canvas, 15 7/8 x 12 5/8" (40.3 x 32.1 cm) (MoMA) — This painting is purely abstract, but Mondrian hasn’t obliterated his own hand—step closer to see the brushstrokes.

Piet Mondrian, Composition No. II, with Red ...

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, Paris, 1932 — A pioneer of photojournalism, Cartier-Bresson used a portable 35mm camera which enabled him to capture moments like this.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare

Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space, bronze, limestone, wood, 1928 (MoMA) — When this traveled from France to the U.S. for an exhibition, customs agents couldn’t believe it was a work of art.

Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space

Constantin Brancusi, The Kiss, 1916, limestone, 58.4 x 33.7 x 25.4 cm (Philadelphia Museum of Art) — Brancusi retains the materiality of the stone, honoring it rather than denying it as past artists had done.

Constantin Brancusi, The Kiss

Varvara Stepanova, The Results of the First Five-Year Plan, 1932 (State Museum of Contemporary Russian History, Moscow) — Stepanova lent her artistic talents to the cause of promoting the ideals of the Soviet Union.

Varvara Stepanova, The Results of the First ...

C.R.W. Nevinson, Paths of Glory, 1917, oil on canvas, 46.7 x 60.9 cm (Imperial War Museum, London) — Britain was at war, and its artists and writers represented a broad range of experiences.

British Art and Literature During WWI

Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913 (cast 1931), bronze, 111.2 x 88.5 x 40 cm (The Museum of Modern Art, New York) — Ready to break with Classical and Renaissance styles, Boccioni sculpted a future-man: muscular, dynamic, driven.

Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in ...