Two phases of Cubism

Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement. It is sometimes regarded as having two phases - the Analytic phase and the Synthetic phase.

Analytic Phase (1907-1912)

Analytic phase attempted to show objects as the mind, not the eye, perceives them. It is termed as analytic because the structure of the subject has been separated into sections, view point by view point, resulting in a fragmentary image of multiple view points and over lapping planes. Other distinguishing features of analytical cubism were a simplified palette of colors, so that the views would not by distracted by its fragmentary forms.

Analytic Cubism was developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.  Picasso's 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon has often been considered to be a major step towards the founding of the Cubist movement.  In this period, Picasso’s painting were mainly using monochrome brownish and neutral colors.

 

                                       

                                                                      

Braque's paintings of 1908–1913 reflected his new interest in geometry and simultaneous perspective. He frequently reduced an architectural structure to a geometric form approximating a cube, yet rendered its shading so that it looked both flat and three-dimensional by fragmenting the image.

At this time, Pablo Picasso was influenced by Gauguin, Cézanne, African masks and Iberian sculpture while Braque was interested mainly in developing Cézanne's ideas of multiple perspectives. Braque’s essential subject is the ordinary objects he has known practically forever.

Synthetic phase (1912-1919)

The Synthetic phase featured works that were composed of fewer and simpler forms, in brighter colors.

Picasso and Braque discovered that through the repetition of "analytic" signs their work became more generalized, more geometrically simplified and flatter. Overlapping planes sometimes shared one color.  Real pieces of paper replaced painted flat depictions of paper. Fragments of newspaper, playing cards, cigarette packs, and advertisements that were either real or painted interacted on the flat plane of the canvas as the artists tried to achieve a total interpenetration of life and art.The invention of collage, which integrated signs and fragments of real things, is one aspect of "Synthetic Cubism.

              

Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century. It revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture.