I am doing an assignment for art...?

Question

it is on cubism, I was trying to look up a couple of examples but really can't find much (I need a little bit more tat way I am able to try to draw one)

I have never drawn cubism before, so I have no idea how this will work!!!

It is an assignment that is trying showing some elements of art (line and shape)

Answer 1

These sites have a bunch of examples
http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/c/cubism.html
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/cubism.html
http://www.eyeconart.net/history/cubism.htm

Answer 2

Forget it. You have to be able to grok all of the other 2-D concepts, in practice, before you can attempt it. That was the point; a separation from the restrictions of the formal memes. It's no easier to fake a Picaso, than it is a Pollack. If you were a prodigy, you wouldn't ask the question, but you MIGHT be able to fake it. If your instructor is telling you to do this, they are screwing you over, intentionally, and you'll just have to fake it.
If so, try to get the concept behind why seagull chicks are fascinated by red lines on a stick, and you have a head start. No, I'm not kidding.

Answer 3

Don Quixote de Kaw is exactly correct....the very point of Cubism was that in order to get to that point of departure from reality, you had to have mastered the art of a fairly advanced understanding of reality. You cannot mimic an idea and really "get" it. The idea of mimicking a masterpiece freaks me out.

Cubism is deconstructionist...what I mean is that, after some degree of mastery over classical drawing and painting ( a huge undertaking), you then begin to realize that the nuances and intricasies...the details CAN (if you choose for them to)become nonessential to the art.
In other words, you take apart reality, breaking it down into what objects are made of ...removing detail. You are looking at the same thing from different viewpoints at the same time. That is what Picasso claimed, anyway.

I believe what your instructor is trying to get you to do is to mimic cubism so that you can appreciate the division of concepts of the dimensions, the planes and perspective, and the point where reality and perspective kind of take a leap of faith. Until you exhibit some degree of mastery over the disciplines behind the concepts translating from three to two dimensions that are made in representational art, you simply cannot really create anything cubistic. Yes, you can copy or render or mimic, but that is not creating....or understanding the process. Or in even more basic terms, you can ape an original concept, but then it is no longer original. That is the point.

Also, Picasso went through many distinct periods (his Red Period, his Blue Period, etc.) These were his journey from being a truly genius master of classical drawing and painting and sculputure to the eventual fork in the road where he made that leap of faith into cubism. It was a very gradual process over an amazingly prolific production of many paintings, etc. Then the shift to Cubism came. But, like a classically trained ballet dancer can depart and master interpretive or jazz or moonwalking or broadway dancing or create her/his own choreography into new dance forms, the exact same thing can be said for visual art.

But, there again, there are artists, mainly in the late 20th and now the 21st century that just go for it and "create"..
And, the validity of their work speaks for itself. I believe there is value in many different kinds of creating. But even the Impressionists, who were scorned by all the great art institutions of the time, as revolutionary as their work was and is, were brilliant classical artists earlier in their lives. The truth is that Van Gogh, Gaugin, Monet (Impressionists and Post-impressionists) and even Lautrec or Pointalist artists all came from very classical backgrounds and evolved.

To answer the exact question you asked, Braque and Picasso are the main Cubist artists. The artist before them that was the exact crossroads between more realistic art and cubism was Paul Cezanne. Look at Cezanne's work, and you will see how he begins to break down form into very basic shapes and planes(even though his work has many details). Put one of his paintings in an internet window and one of Picasso's next to it in another window. You will see what I mean. That will make it very clear to you. And even Cezanne had already evolved into a less academic painter of reality.

By mimicing Cubism, what you will learn during the actual process of composing the layout and executing the drawing/ painting is all good and new and terrific, but it is no substitute for the insights you would gain by learning to crawl and walk and run before you fly. Ask your instructor if it would be possible to learn about the processes that led up to the point that gave the world Cubism so that you would be able to see the linear progression of the development of Cubism. If your instructor doesn't appreciate your question, he should not be teaching art. Don Quixote gave you the straightest answer there is. You should copy down his answer and let your teacher read it. Maybe you will be teaching him something very important. If a teacher had given me asn awssignment like that, I would have lost my mind. To me, it means he just has no grasp of what art is. You can't fake it.

Answer 4

Check out Pablo Picasso and Brack (I don't remember his first name. These were the main ones to start the cubism movement. Look at a person and try to draw them in blocks, cubes, flat planes. there is shading but it is shading of the sides. Another one to look at is Duchamp's NUDE DESCENDING A STAIRCASE. Try using chalk or pastel or even crayon using the side to draw in blocked areas.