A digital lesson about Cubism andthe basic elements

of design in art

2005 Pearson Publishing

Cubism was a very important collection of ideas about art. It was invented by Pablo Picasso

and some of his friends in Paris, during the early years

of the 20th century.

The other main Cubists were Georges Braque, Juan Gris

and Fernand Leger.

Cubism started with two main ideas.

One idea was an attempt to find new ways to create space in a picture. These artists flattened the picture space to show very little illusion of 3D depth. They thought this was more real since paintings really are flat.

The second idea was about fragmentation, or the breaking up, of the objects in a picture. They did this because they thought that we really do see objects from different angles as we move around them. This led to a reduction of details in the pictures, to simple shapes like spheres, cones and cubes (hence ‘the Cubists’!).

Also, the Cubists were working in Europe just before and during the First World War. Perhaps they felt that life was fragmenting, and this experience made its way into their art too.

Picasso continued to play with the main ideas of Cubism long after the war ended.

By the mid 1920s, Cubism had become a different style from its angular and often grey beginnings. It was almost fruity, often highly coloured and optimistic. It celebrated good things like food, music and our simple everyday surroundings.

Picasso did this by exploring the effects of exaggerated shape, line, colour, tone and pattern. We sometimes call shape, line, colour, tone and pattern the basic elements of art, since these are some of the simplest ways to think about creating a picture.

This is the focus of this lesson, and I shall use image manipulation software to develop a Cubist picture.

This is my starting point. Bowls of fruit, jugs, flowers and simple furniture were often used by the Cubist artists as a starting point

to develop a picture.

This is a digital photograph.

My first step is to distort some key parts of the image. I want to show off the roundness of the bowl and jug.

I’ve also made the flowers and brown pot bigger.

Next, I’ve flattened the picture space by getting rid of some of the strong angles that were caused

by the effect of perspective

in the original photograph.

See how the picture

frame and table are

now square with the

edge of my picture.

This is how it’s done!

I’ve copied little pieces of the original

and pasted each one as a new layer,

on top of the original.

Then I can move, stretch or rotate the jug top, using the little control

points here …

If I select the layer with a copy

of the top of the white jug here …

Here is the original layer

at the bottom.

Next, I’ve merged the layers into one layer,

and applied a find edges filter to the

image.

This shows the shapes very clearly, but it has removed most of the colour.

This slide illustrates one

of the most powerful commands of image

manipulation software. This is the use of layers

and transparency. I’ve put the previous coloured version of the

picture behind the outline version.

But the top layer has its opacity set to 49% so I can see through it.

Now we can have the colour and the

strong outline.

Now, simply by darkening the picture and increasing the

contrast, the shapes and the colours can

become very dramatic.

Picasso often used simple pattern to

enliven some of the more plain areas of a

picture.

I’ve copied a little ‘Picasso style’ pattern

onto the wall.

Cubist pictures were often quite complex. Lines, shapes, colours and patterns interact

to create unexpected rhythms

across the picture surface.

I’ve achieved this here by using

the magic wand tool to select, copy and paste related areas

into new places within the picture.

Finally, I’ve used the crop tool

to cut down the edges to complete the composition.

This is my digital Cubist still life.

Let’s see that again without the captions.

Just watch how the picture develops.

Thank you for following this lesson.

Now it’s time for you to try out some of these ideas!