Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler in his work The Rise of Cubism discusses the steps that Picasso and Braque made in order to establish cubism as an art movement. According to the author, initially Picasso tried to address all of the problems of painting at once, which is the representation of three dimensions and color, by placing sharp images on the canvas in the brightest colors. However, later he abandoned this technique. Instead, he started using light as a means to create form. In the meantime, Braque reached a similar artistic decision by focusing on the exact definition of objects in space. Braque was the first one to introduce ‘real objects’, in other words, to realistically painted things without distortion in color or form.
In addition to this, both artists were trying to represent the position of objects in space by beginning their painting from a clearly defined and definite background instead of starting from the foreground. As a result, Braque and Picasso focused their attention on primary qualities of an object, such as its form and position in space, instead of focusing on less important, secondary qualities, such as the tactile quality or color. According to Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, the geometric forms in cubism only provide a spectator with a solid structure. However, on the basis of this structure, the spectator builds the products of his or her imagination.
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Cubism, from this point of view, to a big extent uses the same techniques as architecture or applied art. From this point of view, cubism is very different from other artistic movements, where a huge emphasis is placed on color and pleasant arabesques rather than on ‘realistic’ representation of objects. Although, according to the author, cubism does not aim to provide ‘realistic’ representation of an object, it provides a basis for the ‘seen’ form that gives an individual a lot of space for imagination.
