Page 35 - Studio International - May 1970

those factors in the development of Cubism much a hall-mark of cubist painting as the central coherence of the elements as a group
that in effect make Cubism for me part of the new pictorial structure itself. However, the that is physically bonded and interwoven,
history of modern sculpture, and thus an un- intention was not aggressive; it was to that was noticeable in the analytic period,
avoidable and positive part of sculpture today. neutralize the importance of the subject, to now becomes dominant: the central nucleus
turn it into object, by taking its existence for virtually becomes an object for which the
II granted. In terms of subject as well as hand- surrounding rectangle no longer offers sup-
The Desmoiselles d'Avignon is usually taken to ling the analytical-cubist still-life was virtually port. (The characteristic oval frame of the
be the first cubist painting, and from 1907 abstract. The conventional elements of still- cubist painters also confirms the need of both
until 1909 the subject matter of Picasso's and life present a ready-made linear vocabulary: artists to tie the elements of the painting into
Braque's paintings was conventional enough, the violin, for example, provides a variety of a central structure, rather than depend on the
consisting of nude figures, singly or in groups, curves from the profile of the sound box, the character of the rectangle to generate an
landscape and still life. Each type of subject fs' of the sound holes, the spiral at the top; internal structure proper to itself.) It is in-
called for a certain kind of pictorial structure, contrasting with the parallel or converging structive to compare the construction of, for
the grouping or dispersion of areas of interest, straight lines of the strings. The separation example, Picasso's Still-Life collage of 1912-13
the breakdown of recognizable subject into of these linear elements was the prelude of with the Juan Gris collage The Teacups of
planes and illusioned volumes. In this first their translation later into physical, construc- 1914. In the latter the individual elements-
stage of Cubism landscape provided an tional terms. cups, glasses, plates, pipe and so on, are far
ideal pretext for making what was virtually Still-life as a genre implies the preliminary more sculpturally realized than in the
an abstract structure. construction of the subject by the painter, Picasso, but nonetheless they are embedded
If one compares Picasso's Houses on a Hill, before he starts work on the canvas. The still- in a composition which is derived from a
painted at Horta in 1909, with a compar- life is an artificial, 'made' thing; the Cubists division of the picture rectangle into areas
able painting by Cézanne, the Rocky Land- first dispensed with the need to work from each of which is then given a specific
scape, Aix, one notes immediately that the reality -from there it was but a short step to character, of flatness, or of implied projec-
Picasso painting is far more sculptural in presenting the constructed still-life as an art tion; the power of the picture operating on
effect, besides being, obviously, far more object itself, without the need to filter it our awareness of the tension between the
generalized and abstract. Although the through the conventions of pictorial whole as a flat rectangle and the parts as
illusioned space in the Cézanne is much representation. areas with conflicting indications of volume
deeper, the colour, the presence of in- Up until the introduction of collage the and space. From 1915, Picasso took up this
dividually-defined brushmarks, and the even sculptural in Cubism remained in the realm option of working against the confines of the
dispersion of interest, make one strongly of illusion. When Braque and Picasso actually rectangle, making up for slackness of com-
aware of the picture as a painted surface. By started to cut out and paste up pieces of position by the variety of strong colour and
contrast, the interest is strongly in the centre textured paper, newspaper and so on, they texture and the witty use of sign references to
of the Picasso picture although each unit is moved into the area of physically making. A the subject.
lit separately-as opposed to the natural tool- knife or scissors-was introduced into the
lighting from one direction in the Cézanne- process, and although the collage still reads III
which contributes to the intensity of the by reference and illusion, cutting and glueing In 1912 both Braque and Picasso were making
sculptural illusion. The depth of the Cézanne stand for a mode that is far more concrete constructions in paper, most of which (and all
picture is visual; in the Picasso depth is than that implied by the use of brush and of Braque's) have disappeared; Braque went
almost tactile-one explores it with the hand pencil. In fact both Braque and Picasso start no further in this direction, but Picasso started
as much as with the eye.5 to use the drawn line in conjunction with to employ more durable materials-card-
By 1910 Braque and Picasso had begun to collage elements in a far more actual, con- board, string, wood and thin sheet-steel.
break into the contours of depicted shapes and crete way, as though they were using a saw, or Picasso seems enormously responsive to the
the surrounding space to create an overall wire, rather than charcoal. Moreover, the most immediately available characteristics of
pattern of planes, in what came to be known 6
as Analytical Cubism. The even distribution
of emphasis over the picture rectangle that
resulted might seem a correction toward the
pictorial, from the sculptural illusion of
separately depicted volumes as in the Horta
landscape. However, this effect is counter-
acted by the subject matter of the pictures of
the analytical period, which are mostly half-
length portraits or still-lifes, that provide a
strong central cluster of interest, with a
definite orientation to gravity- that is to say,
the implied structure is built on the bottom
margin of the picture rectangle, which works
like a base, as in Braque's Still-Life with Fish of
1911. In the Female Nude of 1910 Picasso
dispenses with the facetting of the background
completely, and the figure reads so strongly as
of an illusioned construction that I imagine it
would not be too difficult to make physically
with sheet steel or plywood.6
The commonplace subject matter of cubist
still-life-glasses, dishes, guitars, violins, pipes
and so forth-became for contemporaries as