Triggering Cubism

In the first ten years of the 20th century, European society had been brought into contact with alternative art forms, such as those of pre-industrial societies of African nations. These were brought to Europe both via Colonial expansion and the gradual development of communications and, the end result, tourism. The latter put a growing number of travellers, artists and intellectuals in touch with a world that was seen as something unknown and mysterious.

These forms of artistic expression were powerful magnets for those who sought new forms of depiction. Alternative forms introduced by Picasso in 1906 and contained in an exhibition on Cezanne, a forefather of the movement, in 1907, reinforced the idea that depicting reality as it is seen, as had been done since the Renaissance, was not the only way of doing things.

It was not by chance that media such as the cinematograph had come into being and were also being developed as a form of artistic expression, not just faithfully reproducing recorded images, but also setting them in motion. It was therefore no longer necessary to adhere to the rules of linear perspective handed down since the Renaissance, and more figurative models were now made available. It was even possible to represent two-dimensional figures in motion, both from the front and in profile at the same time.

(c) (R) 2012, MUSMon com S.L.