The European Avant-Gardes, 1905-1935

Slavic and Eastern-European Visuality

“…Sascha Bru offers a succinct overview of the manifold Cubisms of the early twentieth century in his book The European Avant-Gardes, 1905-1935(Bru 2018. Generally speaking, Bru claims that what united the various manifestations of Cubism was the method of "[s]hattering or fragmenting perspective, rendering multiple perspectives, orienting the observer towards the surface and material of the artwork, moving in and out of recognizable representation" (Bru 2018).…”

“…Sascha Bru offers a succinct overview of the manifold Cubisms of the early twentieth century in his book The European Avant-Gardes, 1905-1935(Bru 2018. Generally speaking, Bru claims that what united the various manifestations of Cubism was the method of "[s]hattering or fragmenting perspective, rendering multiple perspectives, orienting the observer towards the surface and material of the artwork, moving in and out of recognizable representation" (Bru 2018). These general characteristics of Cubism could then be further characterized into a painterly phase of analytical Cubism wherein "a limited (dark) colour palette was used with minor tonal variation to give shape to subjects whose facets were carefully studied, then broken up into parts, and finally reassembled in a flat grid or diagram that frequently resembled a crystal-like surface" and a synthetic phase which made use of elementary forms, working from memory rather than life, and the introduction of the medium of collage (Bru 2018).…”

“…Generally speaking, Bru claims that what united the various manifestations of Cubism was the method of "[s]hattering or fragmenting perspective, rendering multiple perspectives, orienting the observer towards the surface and material of the artwork, moving in and out of recognizable representation" (Bru 2018). These general characteristics of Cubism could then be further characterized into a painterly phase of analytical Cubism wherein "a limited (dark) colour palette was used with minor tonal variation to give shape to subjects whose facets were carefully studied, then broken up into parts, and finally reassembled in a flat grid or diagram that frequently resembled a crystal-like surface" and a synthetic phase which made use of elementary forms, working from memory rather than life, and the introduction of the medium of collage (Bru 2018). Fechheimer's ambition of a grammar for ancient Egyptian art accords tidily with the notion of a formal language of artistic representation as desired by the analytical phase of Cubism while her descriptions of sculptures given in Kleinplastik emphasize their simple forms and the materials they are composed of in a manner similar to synthetic Cubism.…”