Juan Gris

José Victoriano González-Pérez, better known as Juan Gris (of Madrid 1887-1927). in 1904-1905 he studied painting with academic artist José Maria Carbonero. Then in 1906 he moved to paris and befriended Braque, Fernand Leger and Picasso.

Although he illustrated rather dark humour to journals such as the Le Rire and the Le Chi de Paris, in 1910 he started painting seriously. By 1912 he had developed a distinctive analytical Cubist style. After 1913 Gris' cubist style converted to synthetic cubism with extensive use of Papier Colle.

His style was also distinctive because rather than using monochromatic his fellow artists Picasso and Braque, Gris used bright harmonious colours in the manner of his friend Matisse.

His portrait of Picasso clearly shows his technique to be different from that of Picasso's or Braques, as you can see Gris hasn't reduced elements as dramatically and the repetition of shapes is unique.

Portrait of Picasso 1912

Gris' 'Violin and Checkerboard 1913


'The Guitar' 1918

The artists and influences

In my first post I described how Paul Cezanne became a major influential factor towards the cubist movement pioneered by Picasso and Braque, Cezanne's interest in the conversion/simplification of shapes, emphasis on different perspectives and rejection of the idea that art should be a copy of nature fascinated both Picasso and Braque, therefore encouraging them to begin working on the development of the Cubist movement.

Cezanne was a post-impressionist artist and his early expressionistic works were rather dark and heavy, but became lighter and brighter over time. He was compelled to present outlines of forms so as to show both views from the left and right eyes. Cezanne insisted that art wasn't just natures copy, but rather parallel to it, thus pathing the way to the cubist movement.
He observed and recorded colour variations as well as basic geometric shapes that could be found in nature.
This technique influenced many young painters including Picasso, who referred to Paul Cezanne as "my one and only master; father to us all". Considering Cezanne is seen as the "father of Modern Art", Picasso's quote is more or less correct.

Initially, Picasso was the force and behind the movement and encouraged Braque to move away from Fauvism. Both artists worked in sync during 1908-1909 until the beginning of the first world war, the cubist movement then spread quickly through Paris and Europe.
At first, art critics in Paris weren't as taken to the cubist idea as Picasso and Braque were, they described their work as being "full of little cubes" and "bizarre cubiques".

Analytical and Synthetic Cubism

There are two different forms of cubism, synthetic and analytical. The two forms vary in many ways including how much a subject is reduced to cubist form and the use of "real life" materials - meaning textured materials.

Analytical Cubism looks at the idea of compression within subject inspection - looking at the subject from different angles and bringing all theses veiws together, then reducing and simplifying the element.
The painting PROCESS also plays a vital role in this form of cubism - seeing,movement,recognizing and understanding. Also the reduction of an element to the basic form.

Picasso's Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler is a great example of Analytical cubism

Synthetic Cubism looks at featured elements of collage, introducing textured materials/surfaces to the painting. The idea behind this is to connect/re-connect the painting with the real world. Elements of modern culture were also introduced, an example of this being newspaper clippings.


Picasso's Still Life With Chair Caning shows the use of textured materials in cubism - he used actual chair caning.

Cubism - the beginning

The "agreed" beginning of the cubist movement was in 1907 with Picasso's celebrated 'Demoiselles D'Avignon". The late work of Cezanne (1869 - 1906) was an influence to the cubist movement, Cezanne was the first artist to use shapes to represent nature and his paintings show objects from different perspectives.
The first two key artists to bring Cubism to life were Pablo Picasso of Spain and Georges Braque of France. Their work is thought to have been largely influenced by that of Cezanne.

The basic idea behind cubism art is to break the subject into pieces, analyse those pieces then re-arrange them in a somewhat "abstract" manner. The idea behind this is to portray the subject from different points of view rather than the average 2/3 dimensions, resulting in a more stimulating and detailed work of art.

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Picasso's 'Le Giutariste'


Braque's 'Man with a guitar'