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CUBISM AND FUTURISM

Unrein, Candela; Bressan, Suyai; Ayala, Isabel; Darder, María del Rosario

Instituto Superior San Bartolome

Taller de Cultura y Arte

Ana Paula Suárez

1st October
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Cubism
Introduction

Cubism is the name given to a new form of painting invented and practised by Georges
Braque and Pablo Picasso, working from Paris as a base, between 1908 and 1913 and
developed further by them until at least 1921. It was a revolutionary new approach to
representing reality invented, one of the most influential styles of the twentieth century.
Important original contributions to Cubism were also made by Juan Gris, from the beginning
of 1912, and by Fernand Léger from 1910 until 1913. These four artists were at the heart of
what became, in the years just before the First World War, a great international Cubist
movement, their inventions were adopted and adapted by many others.
Cubist paintings are all in some degree distortions of the visible world, and not invented
abstracts. They do not use conventional perspective, or realist colour, nor do necessarily
conform to a single viewpoint. The artists brought different views of subjects (usually objects
or figures) together in the same picture, resulting in paintings that appear fragmented and
abstracted. Cubism opened new possibilities for the treatment of visual reality in art. It was
the starting point for many later abstract styles including constructivism and neo-plasticism.

The name

In 1908 Georges Braque spent part of the summer at L'Estaque, a small town and port just
west of Marseilles. There, he produced a group of paintings in which the buildings of
L'Estaque are rendered as highly simplified block-like forms.

On his return to Paris, Braque submitted these to

the Salon D'Automne, an annual exhibition of new
art, but they were rejected by the jury. One member
of this jury, Henri Matisse, it is said, spoke
slightingly of the Estaque paintings as being
composed of 'petits cubes'. Braque then took the
paintings to Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, the pioneer
dealer in cubist art in Paris, who exhibited them in
his gallery in November 1908. Reviewing this
exhibition in the journal Gil Bfas the critic Louis
Vauxcelles, who had also given Fauvism its name,
referred to Braque's way of reducing everything,
sites figures and houses to geometric outlines, to
”cubes".

Some months later, writing of paintings shown by

Braque at the Salon des Independents in March 1909, Vauxcelies used the phrase bizarreries
cubiques, cubic eccentricities. The name stuck, although it should perhaps be emphasised
that, of all cubist paintings, those of 1908 and 1909 are the only ones that can really be
described in terms of cubes. Furthermore, it is important to understand that Cubism is not a
descriptive term, cubist painters do not paint in cubes.

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Beginnings

Cubism lasted from about 1908 to the beginnings of the First World War in 1914.

The movement was partly influenced by the late work of artist Paul Cézanne, in which he can
be seen to be painting things from slightly different points of view. Pablo Picasso was also
inspired by African tribal masks which are highly stylised, or non-naturalistic, but still
present a vivid human image. ‘A head’, said Picasso, ‘is a matter of eyes, nose, mouth, which
can be distributed in any way you like’.

Georges Braque came heavily under the influence of Cézanne during 1907. In September of
that year, when he saw `Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' in Picasso's studio, Braque was startled
by the primitivistic emotional qualities of Picasso's picture. It seems that he recognised that
both he and Picasso were travelling in the same direction of a new art inspired by Cézanne.
From late in 1909 for the next few years Picasso joined with Braque in an association so
close that the work of either painter is only distinguishable by the experienced student, and
together they worked out the form of Cubism.

After the First World War, the painters returned to Paris and renewed acquaintances, most of
them had served in the army. They began painting again in the Cubist manner, but the
original urgency had dissolved, and a coherent movement could not be reformed.

Key Ideas

Cubists main idea was centered on creating a new style of painting which transformed
everyday objects, landscapes, and people into geometric shapes.

Their aim was to show things as they really are, not just to show what they look like. They
felt that they could give the viewer a more accurate understanding of an object, landscape or
person by showing it from different angles or viewpoints, so they used flat geometric shapes
to represent the different sides and angles of the objects. By doing this, they could suggest
three-dimensional qualities and structure without using techniques such as perspective and
shading.

This breaking down of the real world into flat geometric shapes also emphasized the two-
dimensional flatness of the canvas. This suited the cubists’ belief that a painting should not
pretend to be like a window onto a realistic scene but as a flat surface it should behave like
one.

Techniques

Cubist painters employed several distinctive techniques to break down objects into their
component parts and represent them from multiple perspectives simultaneously.

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 Simultaneous Viewpoint: Cubists presented objects from multiple viewpoints

simultaneously, often within a single composition. This created a fragmented and
abstract representation of the subject.
 Fragmentation: Objects were broken down into their component parts, such as
geometric shapes, and then reassembled in a new way. This technique challenged
traditional notions of perspective and realism.
 Interlocking Planes: Cubists used overlapping planes of color and form to create a
sense of depth and dimension. These planes often intersected and interlocked,
suggesting multiple perspectives.
 Faceting: Objects were often depicted as if they were composed of multiple facets or
planes, giving them a crystalline or angular appearance.
 Muted Colors: Cubists often used a limited palette of muted colors to emphasize the
abstract and geometric nature of their compositions.

These techniques, combined with the Cubist emphasis on form and structure over realistic
representation, resulted in paintings that were visually complex and intellectually
challenging.

Picasso and Braque

Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer.
(Born October 25, 1881, Málaga, Spain—died April 8, 1973, Mougins, France) He was one
of the greatest and most-influential artists of the 20th century and the creator, with Georges
Braque, of Cubism.

One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the
Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for
the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works
are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and the anti-war painting Guernica
(1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian air forces
during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso's output, especially in his early career, is often periodized. While the names of many
of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue
Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–
1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as
the Crystal period.

Picasso's African-influenced Period (1907–1909) begins with his painting Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon. The three figures on the left were inspired by Iberian sculpture, but he repainted
the faces of the two figures on the right after being powerfully impressed by African artefacts
he saw in June 1907 in the ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadéro. When he displayed
the painting to acquaintances in his studio later that year, the nearly universal reaction was

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shock and revulsion; Matisse angrily dismissed the work as a hoax. Picasso did not exhibit
Les Demoiselles publicly until 1916.

Georges Braque was a French painter, one of the important revolutionaries of 20th-century
art. Born May 13, 1882, Argenteuil, France—died August 31, 1963, Paris, together with
Pablo Picasso, developed Cubism. His paintings consist primarily of still lifes that are
remarkable for their robust construction, low-key colour harmonies, and serene, meditative
quality.

His earliest works were impressionistic, but after seeing the work exhibited by the Fauves in
1905, Braque adopted a Fauvist style. The Fauves, a group that included Henri Matisse and
André Derain among others, used brilliant colors and loose structures of forms to capture the
most intense emotional response. Braque worked most closely with the artists Raoul Dufy
and Othon Friesz, who shared Braque's hometown of Le Havre, to develop a somewhat more
subdued Fauvist style. In 1906, Braque traveled with Friesz to L'Estaque, to Antwerp, and
home to Le Havre to paint.

In May 1907, he successfully exhibited works in the Fauve style in the Salon des
Indépendants. The same year, Braque's style began a slow evolution as he came under the
strong influence of Paul Cézanne, who died in 1906, and whose works were exhibited in
Paris for the first time in a large-scale, museum-like retrospective in September 1907. The
1907 Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d'Automne greatly impacted the direction that the
avant-garde in Paris took, leading to the advent of Cubism.

Braque's paintings of 1908-1913 began to reflect his new interest in geometry and
simultaneous perspective. He conducted an intense study of the effects of light and
perspective and the technical means that painters use to represent these effects, appearing to
question the most standard of artistic conventions. In his village scenes, for example, Braque
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. He showed this in the oil painting "House at L'estaque". In this way, Braque called
attention to the very nature of visual illusion and artistic representation.

Beginning in 1909, Braque began to work closely with Pablo Picasso, who had been
developing a similar approach to oil painting. At the time Pablo Picasso was influenced by
Gauguin, Cézanne, African tribal masks and Iberian sculpture, while Braque was mostly
interested in developing Cézanne's idea's of multiple perspectives. A comparison of the works
off Picasso and Braque during 1908 reveals that the effect of his encounter with Picasso was
more to accelerate and intensify Braque's exploration of Cézanne ideas, rather than to divert
his thinking in any essential way. The invention of Cubism was a joint effort between Picasso
and Braque, then residents of Montmartre, Paris. These artists were the movement's main
innovators. After meeting in October or November 1907, Braque and Picasso, in particular,
began working on the development of Cubism in 1908. Both artists produced paintings of
monochromatic color and complex patterns of faceted form, now called Analytic Cubism.

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A decisive moment in its development occurred during the summer of 1911, when Georges
Braque and Pablo Picasso painted side by side in Céret, in the French Pyrenees, each artist
producing paintings that are difficult - sometimes virtually impossible - to distinguish from
those of the other. In 1912, they began to experiment with collage and papier collé.

Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) The Ladies of Avignon

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is a large

oil painting created in 1907 by the
Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. Part of the
permanent collection of the Museum of
Modern Art in New York, it portrays
five nude female prostitutes in a brothel
on Carrer d’Avinyó, a street in
Barcelona, Spain. The figures are
confrontational and not conventionally
feminine, being rendered with angular
and disjointed body shapes, some to a
menacing degree. The far left figure
exhibits facial features and dress of
Egyptian or southern Asian style. The
two adjacent figures are in an Iberian
style of Picasso’s Spain, while the two
on the right have African mask-like
features. Picasso said the ethnic primitivism evoked in these masks moved him to "liberate an
utterly original artistic style of compelling, even savage force” leading him to add a
shamanistic aspect to his project.

Picasso drew each of the figures in Les Demoiselles differently. The woman
pulling the curtain on the upper right is rendered with heavy paint. Composed
of sharp geometric shapes, her head is the most strictly Cubist of all five. The
curtain seems to blend partially into her body.

The Cubist head of the crouching figure (lower right)

underwent at least two revisions from an Iberian figure to
its current state. She also seems to have been drawn from two different
perspectives at once, creating a confusing, twisted figure. The woman
above her is rather manly, with a dark face and square chest. The whole
picture is in a two-dimensional style, with an abandoned perspective.
Suzanne Preston Blier says that the divergent styles of the painting were
added intentionally to convey to each women art "style" attributes from
the five geographic areas each woman represents.

Painting materials: In 2003, an examination of the painting by x-ray fluorescence

spectroscopy performed by conservators at the Museum of Modern Art confirmed the

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presence of the following pigments: lead white, bone black, vermilion, cadmium yellow,
cobalt blue, emerald green, and native earth pigments (such as brown ochre) that contain iron.

Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Mantelpiece 1911, George Braque

Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Mantelpiece 1911

is an oil painting on canvas by the French artist
Georges Braque. The composition comprises a
variety of objects presented as a series of
disassembled, largely geometric layered shapes
which form sharp angles and lines across the
canvas. A clarinet, bottle of rum, a nail and a
mantelpiece can be discerned.

The clarinet lies on a mantelpiece at the centre of

this playful work. In front of it stands a bottle with
the characters RHU, the first three letters of the
French word for rum. The word Valse (Waltz)
introduces the idea of dancing, reinforcing the
theme of music evoked by the clarinet and
suggestions of treble and bass clefs. The scrolled
form in the lower right-hand corner could stand
for either the bracket of the mantelpiece or the
head of an instrument.

The side edge of the mantelpiece may be visible as it follows the course of the right-hand
bold line until it is interrupted by an elaborate twisting corbel. A third view of the
mantelpiece may appear in the lines which run in a counter-direction to the main mantelpiece
from top-left to bottom-right. A final, fourth view is offered by a series of three lines briefly
delineating a rectangular shape that runs from the mid-left of the canvas to the clarinet.

The work’s palette is limited, featuring blacks, muted greys, dull yellows and browns. These
colours overlap, much in the same way as the lines and fragmented picture planes. Braque’s
descriptive title draws the viewer’s attention to key objects within the composition and
prevents the painting from appearing non-representational.

An inscription on the back of Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Mantelpiece indicates that it
was painted in 1911 in Céret in the French Pyrenees, where Braque was spending the summer
with Pablo Picasso. The painting was built up using a mixture of short brushstrokes (in areas
of shadow) and longer brushstrokes (for instance in the thick black lines of the mantelpiece).
Braque has also applied the paint delicately and thinly in some areas to accentuate the
transparency of the layers.

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Futurism
Introduction

Futurism was an Italian art movement of the early twentieth century that aimed to capture in
art the dynamism and energy of the modern world.

The Futurist painters, led by the poet Filippo Marinetti, were working in Italy from 1909 to
1916, roughly during the same time as the Cubists in France. This group, formed by Umberto
Beecioni, Gine Severini and Giacomo Balla, among others, thought that Italy was imprisoned
by her past glories and had to be made to step into the future. Their wider aim was to bring
European culture into what they saw as the glorious new world of modern technology.

Background

Futurism emerged in Italy at the beginning of the 20th century, a time of rapid
industrialization and social change. The country was experiencing significant growth, with
new technologies and infrastructure transforming cities and landscapes. This sense of
progress and dynamism was a key inspiration for the Futurist movement.

Social factors:

 Urbanization: The rapid growth of cities like Milan and Turin created a sense of
excitement and energy, which Futurists sought to capture in their art.
 Industrialization: New technologies and factories transformed the landscape and
created a sense of optimism about the future.
 Youth culture: The Futurists were often young and idealistic, eager to break away
from the traditions of the past.

Political factors:

 Nationalism: Futurism was a deeply nationalistic movement, celebrating Italian

culture and history.
 Anti-traditionalism: The Futurists rejected the past and embraced modernity, often
in a provocative and aggressive manner.
 Fascist connections: Some Futurists later became associated with the fascist regime
of Benito Mussolini, although the movement's early ideals were more complex and
nuanced.

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Painting Techniques of Futurism

Futurism was an early 20th-century art movement that celebrated speed, technology, and the
energy of modern life. Its artists employed a variety of techniques to capture the dynamic and
fleeting nature of their subjects. Here are some of the key painting techniques associated with
Futurism:

 Simultaneous Vision: Artists used multiple perspectives and viewpoints within a

single composition to suggest the rapid passage of time and the sensation of
movement.
 Divisionism: A technique similar to Pointillism, where small dots of color are applied
side by side to create a sense of vibrancy and energy.
 Dynamic Lines: Futurrists used long, curving lines to convey the sense of motion and
speed. These lines often intersected and overlapped, creating a sense of chaos and
excitement.
 Linear Perspective: While Futurism often rejected traditional perspective, artists
sometimes used it in a distorted or exaggerated way to create a sense of speed and
dynamism.
 Color Contrast: Futurrists often used bold, contrasting colors to create a sense of
excitement and energy.

These techniques, combined with the subject matter of Futurism, resulted in paintings that
were visually striking and full of movement. Futurism had a significant impact on the
development of modern art, and its influence can still be seen in the work of contemporary
artists.

More than an art movement

The Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) was the first among the artists in
the movement to publish their aims in a manifesto, which is a public declaration of principles
and intentions. In his Manifesto of Futurism, which he published for the first time on 5
February 1909 in La gazzetta dell'Emilia, an article then reproduced in the French daily
newspaper Le Figaro on Saturday 20 February 1909.

The Futurists were very keen on publicity and this first manifesto, was in praise of youth,
machines, movement, power and speed. Marinetti invented and inspired the ideas behind
Futurism. These ideas included a hatred of concepts from the past, especially political and
artistic traditions. The Futurists tried hard to deny the past, the idea of the future as something
exciting and glorious was very strong at this time.

The Futurists used dynamism to glorify violence; their manifesto proposed burning the
museums, the guardians of the past, and they saw war as something fast, noisy and theatrical.
This attempt to come to terms with the machine by glorifying it was futile as became evident
in the First World War, when the machine gun was the cause of undreamt horror. The real

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contribution of the Futurists now seems to be their “simultaneity", a way of putting together
visually in a painting things that happen together in time sound, light and movement.

Even though they came from the same country as the great Renaissance artists Leonardo,
Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli and Caravaggio, to name a few, the Futurists rejected them.
In Italy the weight of past culture was felt as particularly oppressive. The guturists praised
“originality, however daring, however violent”. They celebrated change and innovation,
loved new technology, especially machines with their speed and power, and they believed
that they loved violence and conflict.

Their manifesto was aggressive and intended to attract attention and to rouse public anger and
controversy.

Futuristic style

The first manifesto published in 1909 did not contain any artistic programme, therefore, the
next year the futurists published a new one. The Futurist Painting: Technical Manifesto
(1910) by Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916) was the first exposition of the theoretical
underpinnings of Italian Futurist painting.

They were fairly slow to develop a distinctive style and subject matter. In 1910 and 1911
some tried pointillism, applying dots and dashes inspired by Seurat. In 1911 some adopted
methods of the Cubists. Both these styles were explored, with an emphasis on the effects of
speed and movement. The Futurists experimented with every medium of art, including
painting, sculpture, poetry, theatre, music and architecture. The Futurists believed that art
should be inspired by the modern marvels of their newly technological world.

Futurist painting used elements of neo-impressionism and cubism to create compositions that
expressed the idea of the dynamism, the energy and movement, of modern life.

Giacomo Balla, Abstract

Speed, the Car has Passed
1913, oil on canvas, 50.2 x
654. Tate.

Balla was a leader of the

group. He believed that the
power and speed of
machines were the most
important features of
modern life and aimed to
express this idea in his

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work. Balla was dedicated to researching the phenomenon of movement. He is the author of
numerous studies and paintings that examine the dynamism of movement in different forms.

This painting was originally the right-hand part of a triptych. The left-hand part was called
Abstract Speed + Landscape and the central one, Abstract Speed + Sound.

The theme was the passage of a car along a white road with green and blue shapes,
suggesting earth and sky in the background. The pinkish areas indicate the exhaust fumes left
by the passing car.

This motif is present in all three paintings: in the first, on the left, are superimposed 'lines of
force' (pinkish red) which evoke the speed of the passing car. In the second, in the center, on
the same motif of the road, the landscape and the sky are superimposed lines of force (red),
together with criss-crossed forms and strident oppositions of colour symbolizing the noise of
the car; these expand to fill the entire picture. In the third, remains the white road, the
landscape, the sky and the pinkish exhaust which gives a vague sensation of the car that has
passed.

The triptych Abstract Speed, which Balla worked on between 1913 and 1914, is an example
of a clearly defined futurist aesthetic based on a synthesis of cubist and post-impressionist
influences. By contrasting a field of pure colours with very little space for nuanced tones,
Balla laid a divisionist basis for the composition. A strong cubist impulse is felt in the
application of mobile perspective as well as the geometrical fragmentarity that characterizes
all three paintings.

The futurist landscape loses the pastoral qualities of traditional landscape painting. It
represents the dynamics of movement in nature, in the case of the Abstract Speed triptych, it
is about exploring the futurist idea of permeating all living and non-living elements in space.
Balla extracted the scene from the reality of the painting and brought it closer to the viewer.

Abstract Speed – The Car has Passed concludes this vibrant triptych. The most reduced in the
palette, this composition brings clear contours of the landscape, which coloristically follows
the three-part structure of the scene through dominant blue, green, and white. The traces of
the exhaust fumes in the air left by the passing car, presented in pale pink tones, are the only
element that indicates the car’s recent presence in space. By dealing with the visual
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components of the car’s absence, Balla directs the viewer to an intuitive relationship with the
scene.

Giacomo Balla

Born July 24, 1871, in Turin, Italy, Balla was an Italian artist and founding member of the
Futurist movement in painting.

Balla was the son of a photographer and as a child studied music. By the age of twenty, his
interest in visual art developed to such a level that he decided to study painting at local
academies, and several of his early works were shown at exhibitions. He briefly attended to
an academy in Turin. As a young artist, was greatly influenced by French Neo-
Impressionism. When returned to Rome, he adopted the Neo-Impressionist style and
imparted it to two younger artists, Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini. Balla’s early works
reflect contemporary French trends but also hint at his lifelong interest in rendering light and
its effects.

Unlike most Futurists, Balla was a lyrical painter, unconcerned with modern machines or
violence. Despite his unique taste in subject matter, in his works Balla conveys a sense of
speed and urgency that puts his paintings in line with Futurism’s fascination with the energy
of modern life.

During World War I, Balla composed a series of paintings in which he attempted to convey
the impression of movement or velocity through the use of planes of colour; these works are
perhaps the most abstract of all Futurist paintings. After the war, he remained faithful to the
Futurist style long after its other practitioners had abandoned it. In addition to his painting,
during these years he explored stage design, graphic design, and even acting. At the end of
his career, he abandoned his lifelong pursuit of near abstraction and reverted to a more
traditional style. He died on March 1, 1958 in Rome.

Nude Descending a Staircase- Marcel Duchamp 1912

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Overview
"Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2" is a seminal work by Marcel Duchamp, painted in
1912. This oil on canvas painting, measuring 147 cm × 89.2 cm (57.9 in × 35.1 in), is housed
in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The painting represents a pivotal moment in modern art,
bridging Cubism and Futurism while challenging traditional notions of representation.
Description and Analysis
Duchamp's painting presents a figure in motion, descending a staircase. The figure is
abstracted into geometric shapes, creating a sense of movement through repetition and
overlapping forms. The color palette is limited, primarily using shades of brown, ochre, and
black, which contributes to the work's overall sense of unity and motion.
Key aspects of the painting include:
 Fragmentation: The figure is broken down into multiple abstract planes, a technique
borrowed from Cubism.
 Motion: The repetition of forms suggests movement, aligning with Futurist ideals of
depicting dynamic motion.
 Abstraction: While the title suggests a nude figure, the painting is highly abstracted,
challenging viewers' expectations.
 Mechanical aesthetic: The figure appears almost robotic, reflecting Duchamp's
interest in machinery and modern life.

Context and Significance

"Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2" was initially rejected by the Cubists for the Salon des
Indépendants exhibition in Paris. They found it too Futurist in its overt depiction of motion.
This rejection highlights the painting's unique position between Cubism and Futurism.

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The painting gained notoriety when it was displayed at the 1913 Armory Show in New York.
It caused a sensation, with critics and the public alike struggling to understand its radical
approach. One critic famously described it as "an explosion in a shingle factory."
Influence and Legacy
Duchamp's "Nude" had a profound impact on the development of modern art: It challenged
traditional representations of the human form. It introduced elements of motion and time into
static painting, paving the way for later explorations in kinetic art. The controversy
surrounding the work helped establish Duchamp as a leading figure in the avant-garde. It
influenced the development of both Cubism and Futurism, demonstrating how these
movements could be synthesized.

Connection to Futurism
While Duchamp is not typically classified as a Futurist, "Nude Descending a Staircase, No.
2" shares several key characteristics with Futurist works:
 Emphasis on motion: Like the Futurists, Duchamp was fascinated by the depiction of
movement in static art.
 Rejection of traditional forms: Both Duchamp and the Futurists sought to break away
from conventional artistic representation.
 Interest in modern life: The mechanical, almost robotic nature of the figure aligns
with Futurist celebrations of machinery and technology.
 Controversy: Like many Futurist works, Duchamp's painting provoked strong
reactions and challenged artistic norms.

Marcel Duchamp: A Dadaist Pioneer

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) was a French-American artist whose innovative and often
provocative work had a profound influence on the development of modern art. He rejected
traditional artistic conventions and embraced the absurd.

Born into a wealthy family in Blainville, France, Duchamp studied at the École des Beaux-
Arts in Paris, where he was influenced by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. His
early work was influenced by Cubism, and he created several important paintings, including
Nude Descending a Staircase (1912).

Duchamp became a central figure in the futurism and dadaism art movements This last one
emerged in response to the horrors of World War I. Dada rejected traditional artistic values
and embraced the absurd and nonsensical. Duchamp's participation in Dada was marked by
his creation of provocative and often humorous works, such as Fountain (1917), a urinal
signed "R. Mutt."

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Duchamp's most famous works are his readymades, everyday objects that he presented as
art. These included Fountain (1917), Bicycle Wheel (1913), and Étant donnés (1946-1966).
Étant donnés is a complex and enigmatic piece that features a glass box containing a scene
with a woman and a man. It was not publicly exhibited until after Duchamp's death.

In the 1920s, Duchamp moved to New York City, where he became a prominent figure in the
American art scene. He continued to create innovative works, including L.H.O.O.Q. (1919), a
reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa with a mustache and goatee added.

Duchamp's work had a profound influence on subsequent generations of artists. His challenge
to traditional notions of art and his exploration of the boundaries between art and life have
made him a legendary figure in the history of modern art.

CONCLUSION

Cubism and Futurism were two influential art movements that emerged in the early 20th
century. While both movements sought to challenge traditional artistic conventions, their
approaches were distinct.

Futurists adopted an aggressive and dynamic approach, emphasizing speed, technology, and
the energy of the modern world. They rejected the past and embraced the future, often in a
provocative manner.

Cubists took a more subtle approach, focusing on challenging traditional notions of

perspective and representation. They broke down objects into their component parts and
reassembled them in new ways, creating fragmented and abstract compositions.

Despite their differences, both Cubism and Futurism had a profound impact on the
development of modern art. Their innovative approaches and willingness to experiment with
new forms and techniques continue to inspire artists today.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Artlex. (n.d.). Abstract Speed - The Car Has Passed (Giacomo Balla). Retrieved from
https://www.artlex.com/artwork/abstract-speed-the-car-has-passed-giacomo-balla/

Britannica. (n.d.). Marcel Duchamp. Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcel-Duchamp

Georges Braque. (n.d.). Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Mantelpiece. Retrieved from
https://www.georgesbraque.org/clarinet-and-bottle-of-rum-on-a-mantelpiece.jsp

Georges Braque. (n.d.). Georges Braque Biography. Retrieved from

https://www.georgesbraque.org/georges-braque-biography.jsp

Tate. (n.d.). Cubism. Retrieved from https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/cubism

Tate. (n.d.). Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Mantelpiece. Retrieved from

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/braque-clarinet-and-bottle-of-rum-on-a-mantelpiece-
t02318

Wikipedia. (n.d.). Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Retrieved from

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Demoiselles_d'Avignon

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (n.d.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved from
https://www.metmuseum.org/
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Museum of Modern Art. (n.d.). Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved from

https://www.moma.org/

Tate. (n.d.). Tate Modern. Retrieved from https://www.tate.org.uk/

Museu Picasso Barcelona. (n.d.). Picasso: Master of Modern Art. Retrieved from
https://museupicassobcn.cat/en

Art Institute of Chicago. (n.d.). Cubism and Its Influence. Retrieved from
https://www.artic.edu/collection?style_ids=Cubism&page=5

Society for Asian Art. (1909). The Futurist Manifesto. Retrieved from
https://www.societyforasianart.org/sites/default/files/manifesto_futurista.pdf

Appendix: Additional Resources on Cubist Techniques

The following YouTube videos provide visual demonstrations of various Cubist techniques:

Cubism technique 5: Collage. (n.d.). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=mMngaGZiO2w
Cubism technique 6: Monochrome colours. (n.d.). [Video]. YouTube.
https://youtu.be/XU23KvN1VKY

Cubism technique 3: Geometric shapes. (n.d.). [Video]. YouTube.

https://youtu.be/I1BBC4YD_6A

[Additional video on Cubist techniques]. (n.d.). [Video]. YouTube.

https://youtu.be/tRoe1FHw9yk

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