Cubism. Guillaume Apollinaire

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      The themes and techniques of popular art influenced the development of modernist art. The avant-garde pioneers systematically acquired new sources of inspiration and the categorical separation between art, folk art and anti-art was lifted. Theodore Adorno specifically warned against comparing the insights of the modernist movement to similarities with older art. Only through the deliberate artistic use of techniques and material would the work become more than mere handicraft. He added that only when Braque and Picasso first pasted pieces of paper in the papiers collés did this have the intellectual spark that surpassed the effect and dexterity of previous expressions.

      Collage

      Through the technique of collage, two-dimensional paper transformed itself into three-dimensional expression. Depending on colour, pattern or material, the paper surface appeared in the foreground or in the background, and the painting was transformed into a bas-relief. Picasso had experimented with this technique when he had cut up scraps of paper and used them to construct his guitar box sculptures.

      Futurism in 1911 and 1912 incorporated the flat surface of the papiers collés with rhythmic repetitions and the associated dynamic structure in a state of simultaneity. Futurism created a dynamic relief of the world in a state of unrest. The processes did not develop sequentially, but rather in a concurrence of the past, present and future.

      Carlo Carrà created the prototype of a two-dimensional futurist paper collage using paper and newspaper cut-outs. The Manifestazione Interventista appeared on the 1st of August, in 1914, shortly before the outbreak of World War I, in the newspaper Lacerba in Paris. Evoking an explosion, printed strips of paper animated by an extraordinary dynamism rotate out from the central point in all directions. For the Futurists, the collage for the first time became a document of the period, using scraps of newspaper, advertising and musical scores. As if liberated, words and letters unfurled to symbolise sounds and noises, tumbling with an overflow of simultaneous information into the painting.

      A short time later, this Futurist combination of text and sound further developed in the Dada movement. Printed fragments of paper that had their own separate meanings were combined to reveal new interpretations and send new messages. In reciprocal interaction, even unrelated levels of reality obtained unexpected new meanings.

      Using already existing visual materials, collage created new possibilities in the total mutation of the original meaning of the material. Collage in the 20th century, as a way of thinking, opened unknown paths and unexpected possibilities.

      Simultaneity in Cubist Circles

      In 1913, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire dedicated his work The Cubist Painters to Cubism, thereby helping the movement attain broad renown. Painters like Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes made impressive contributions to the Cubist language of shapes. In 1912 one of the most famous paintings of the 20th century was created: the Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) by Marcel Duchamp. Aided by the Cubist vocabulary of shapes and his familiarity with Étienne-Jules Marey’s photos depicting movement, Duchamp painted a picture that moved the world. Five moments of the movement of one person, descending a spiral staircase, are captured in time-lapsed sequence, showing all the reciprocal movements triggered by her walking. In doing this, Duchamp introduced time as the fourth dimension in the painting. Though this nude triggered a scandal at the famous 1913 Armory Show in New York, some recognised the innovative character of this new work, calling it “the light at the end of the tunnel”. Duchamp, brother of the painter Jacques Villon, the sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon and the painter Suzanne Duchamp, was anything but a consistent worker. His unruly soul quickly led him to experiment with different media and eclectic ideas that shocked the art world. In New York, he became friends with Francis Picabia, with whom he became responsible for Dada.

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