Synthetic cubism (sometimes collage cubism , since the painting made in this genre becomes like a collage ) is a direction in modern art , which flourished in 1912-1914. By the 1920s, it had virtually ceased to exist, however, having a significant impact on the further development of 20th-century art.
The History and Features of Synthetic Cubism
In 1912, Du's book Cubisme (On Cubism) was published by Albert Gleize and Jean Metzenge . This was the first major work on cubism in general. Soon others followed.
For the first time, the features of synthetic cubism as a new genre appeared in the work (still lifes) of Juan Gris [1] , who decided to abandon monochrome. In Gris, the earliest glimpses of this trend date back to 1911 [2]. It was called synthetic because forms are recreated anew. Synthetic cubism denies the third dimension in painting. Picasso and Braque were engaged in it, who devoted a year to their experiments. They created still lifes , almost completely composed of glued pieces of different materials.
Synthetic differs from its predecessor, analytical cubism , quite significantly. In the latter, the picture is something like a tray on which objects are laid, the object seems to be spread out on the front plane of the painting. There is no third dimension, but on the canvas there are self-valuable additional objects [3] .
The paintings, written in the genre of synthetic cubism, acquire additional decorativeness and colorfulness. The artistic perception of the movement is undergoing radical changes. Representatives of the genre were inclined to consider the surface of the painting as an independent art object. The canvas may consist of pieces of newspapers, notes, wallpaper and so on. Then, however, the artists abandoned the use of application technology, believing that imagination could replace it. They began not to make collages from various materials, but to draw them, creating a composition without using paper. The followers of synthetic cubism sought to enrich the world with the creation of completely new aesthetic objects that would have reality in their own right, while not being just an image of the visible.
French critic Alain Joufroix pointed out that some small elements, for example, inscriptions and numbers on paintings, relevant to the genre, were borrowed by the authors of paintings from the usual surroundings of a cafe , which are characterized by price tags, labels, menus, signs, newspapers on the table. In the press, cubism was called the “shock of the bourgeoisie”, as it reflected some of the mood of French society against the backdrop of disturbing reports from the Balkans.