Cubism
キュビスム / 1907–1925 / Style / Avant-garde
A pictorial revolution that freed the subject from a single viewpoint, reassembling facets seen from multiple angles on one flat plane. The fractured planes and muted palette of the Analytic phase, then the newspaper collage and lettering of the Synthetic phase, gave twentieth-century graphic design its founding premise: the picture is not a window onto reality but a field of construction.
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At a glance
Visual cues
- Multiple viewpoints presented at once
- Subjects broken down into facets
- Muted earth tones and grey gradations
- Collage of newsprint and lettering
Best used for
- Diagrams and covers that must show several faces or stages at once
- Subjects a photograph cannot hold, shown taken apart and rebuilt as construction
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Dictionary entry
- Type
- Echo the Synthetic phase, cutting compact grotesques and stencil capitals as pasted paper
- Composition
- Break the subject into planes and set fragments from different viewpoints on one surface
- Material
- A narrow range of ochre, umber and grey with newsprint and woodgrain paper
- Caution
- Avoid fragmenting for decoration alone—if the planes no longer describe the subject from real viewpoints, the result reads as random shattering, not Cubism.
- Further study
- The difference between Analytic and Synthetic Cubism / Papier collé and the introduction of type / The branching into Purism and Orphism
Related entries
- Italian Futurism (イタリア未来派)Same Avant-garde lineage.Compare Cubism and Italian Futurism
- Constructivism (構成主義)Same Avant-garde lineage.Compare Cubism and Constructivism
More from Avant-garde
Continue through styles in the same Avant-garde family, prioritised by shared effects.
- Vorticism (ヴォーティシズム)Shared effects: Rebellion / Technique.
- Merz (メルツ)Shared effects: Technique / Rebellion.
- Indigenismo (インディヘニスモ)Shared effects: Trust / Rebellion.
Browse all Avant-garde entries
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