Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism

After about a century of critical revolutions in art ranging from Neoclassicism to Post-Impressionism, the twentieth century gave birth to yet another heap of reform located all throughout Europe. Three prevalent movements in art during this time period were Cubism, which localized in Paris, Futurism which emerged in Milan, and Constructivism which grew up in Moscow all relatively at the same time. There lies great debate as to which movement was more original, however, there is no doubt that all three styles were—and still are—physical representations of the modern era.

J.M. Nash’s essay, Cubism, Futurism and Constructivism, provides information about each of the major artists of the movements in adequate detail. He beings with Pablo Picasso, who not only was “every inch a chief” with is intimate group of friends who happened to be artists also, but the perhaps the chief of Cubism as well (160). Cubism set out to break objects apart and are reassembled together, this time using different view points to give the object a whole different meaning. A man who stood up against as well as beside Picasso was known by the name of Georges Braque. Described as “’two mountaineers roped together’” the two artists competed against each other as well as complemented one another by simply challenging the other artist to do better in technique and style. It was very interesting and to be honest, quite odd to observe how similar the works off the two artists were however. The subject matter, the composition and also the style were almost identical in that it makes me wonder if one just simply copied whoever created a piece first and then just tweaked a few details here and there. If this were true however, originality for one or both of these Cubists is thrown out the window and almost contradicts the essence of the movement being something “new.”

Now travelling to Italy, Futurism tried to rebel against everything and anything pertaining to the past. Unlike the other movements, it thrived on publicity. Futurism had a way of ironically promoting itself, such as using the Romantic style of metaphors and images to describe itself while at the same time dismissing it in value because it was part of the past ( 179). By looking at some of the Futurist paintings, I can see why their title fits them well. For instance, the image of the dog with many legs to indicate that the dog is walking seems like an image that could be on one of the walls one looks at in Disney's Tomorrowland while waiting for one of the rides. What it also reminds me of is one of those flip books that one would have to flip several pages of the same image to make it seem like its actually moving, kind of like how a regular movie—or a “moving picture”—works today. Today, people don’t really thing anything of how a digital image actually works, but I could imagine that back then in the 20^th century, Futurist paintings were shockingly new innovations that possibly gave birth to a whole bunch of new scientific ideas involving digital media.

Constructivism in the essay was a bit confusing to me and I didn’t really get what th movement was truly about. The revolution seemed to be more about the social events occurring during its time and place rather than a new technique and style of art.