Comparison and Differentiation of Surrealism and Cubism Essay Example

practices that over the warring years seems to be obsolete and inappropriate. In this paper, the author would like to illuminate the readers of what types of changes in arts and humanities transpired during the 20th century as a reaction to the environment by which the artist are situated. It is the primary focus of this paper to show the comparison and differences between two movements that are rendered as influential during the beginning of the 20th century: cubism and surrealism.

In this paper, the author would like to tackle the history of the two movements and that changes that they made in arts and humanities, focusing in literature, sculpture and of course painting. The author would then proceed in finding the similarities between the two followed by the identification of their marked differences. The author would then try to incorporate her personal views regarding the two styles in the concluding part. History The first break from traditional painting started with Cubism.

It is basically an art form that is usually depicted in visual arts with the character of being abstract or that which has no firm physical counterpart. The founders of this art movement are Pablo Picasso and George Braque. Although the term cubism started with Louis Vauxcelles when he described Braque’s painting as ‘cubes’ in 1908 (Rewald, 2004). Cubism apart from being a revolutionary art movement or as an art that go away from traditional artistic style is also an incorporation of cultural arts from African and Indian tribes.

Thus, cubism in its plainest sense already exist before Picasso and Braque, however, such art style was modified to fit in

the revolutionary era of the 20th century with the inclusion of European avant-garde. Cubism began as an art form which moves away from reality in the sense that it tries to represent reality with geometrical figures and concepts. According to art historians such as, David Cottington cubism creates an illusory of movement in their works. Aside from seeing things in an abstracted form, cubism also requires the viewers to see a single object in different angles and perspective.

Cubism was a visual adaptation of Cezanne’s idea that nature and the world should be seen as geometrical shapes and figures. This seems to create a more unbiased sense, since there is no or less conception of beauty, colors and lightning (Cottington, 2004). The first few years of Cubism was called as the ‘analytical phase’ since it emphasize geometrical figures and overlapping planes. The color used were mostly mono-chromatic displaying the hues of a single color that is usually dark such as blue, brown, black or grey.

This phase started in 1907 and ended around 1912 (Rewald, 2004). The next phase of Cubism is the ‘synthetic phase’. During 1912, Picasso experimented with his analytical work by incorporating paper pieces from another material such as newspaper, poster or magazine. This, sort of collage becomes another way of cubist re-association and recreation of things. Most often than not the additional material are cut on a specific shape and angle to accommodate a particular space in the painting that seems to create a great impact on the meaning or portrayal express in the canvass.

Some of the prominent visual artist who embraced the cubist movement were: Juan

Gris, Ferdinand Leger, Diego Rivera, Marcel Duchamp Robert and Sonia Delaunay and Albert Gleizes amongst others. In terms of architecture and sculpture cubism was applied by Jacques Lipchitz and Alexander Archipenko (Rewald, 2004). Surrealism started years after the Cubism. The earliest date of surrealist movement was on 1910. The main theme of this art movement was automatism. This basically implies that an artist just creates works of art without consulting to guidebooks or handouts of arts.

It is simply a display of ‘what goes in the mind’ (Voorhies, 2004). As stated by Andrea McCready, in her book “The treachery of Automatism”, the main influence of Surrealism apart from the abstract perception captured in Cubism was Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx. Due to Freud’s influences, it has always been a striking quality of surrealist arts to include some erotic underpinnings and dream-like structures while Marx influence can be identified with the dark and deep emotions that encompass the arts. Surrealism is commonly associated with the expression of the unconscious.

The word Surrealism was believed to be coined by Andre Breton when he mentioned the artistic movement in his book, ‘The Manifesto of Surrealism’. HE was a poet and also an art critic that tries to put together the works that tries to incorporate the technique of ‘automatism’ as a new movement in the name of Surrealism (Voorhies, 2004). The working strategy that comprises Surrealism as stated above is automatism. The artist has little or no regard either to the morality expressed on his work or the aesthetic value that it ought to posses (Voorhies, 2004).

According to Carol Strickland and John Boswell in

heir book ‘The Annotated Mona Lisa: A crash course in art’, suggest that Surrealism has two forms. The first form being practiced by Joan Miro and Max Ernst are called improvised arts since they distanced themselves from conscious control. Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte, on the other hand practiced another form of Surrealism whch includes the ‘use of hallucinatory things/scenes that defy common sense’. The first few years of Surrealism were more about fantasy and interpretation of dreams or expression of the subconscious.

This part of Surrealism that started during the advent of the World War ended just before the start of World War II when the artist from Europe fled to America (Voorhies, 2004). However, they started to continue the movement in New York as the war proceeds. Ideology Cubism works under the ideology of change and tries to promote the notion of looking for different perspective. It also touches reality and unbiased depiction of the world. It is the first art movement that sways away from copying the exact and vivid details of the subject.

While the focus of renaissance is to focus on man himself, Cubism tries to show man as a part of the universe or as at the same level as his environment. Surrealism on the other hand tries to bring out what is in the mind and show this to the world. It works under the pretence of changing the previous or known and accepting or coping with the rule or way of things. It tries to elevate the status of dreams to try to explain the personal troubles, emotions and ideas of an artist.