Cubism and the Brain

Each form of art has a distinct style which interests observers and compels people to analyze its meaning. Everyone has heard of Picasso, but few people understand the famous movement which he began and the extent of its impact on the world of art. Pablo Ruiz Picasso, along with George Braque, is credited with developing cubism. Cubism, often regarded as one of the most influential art movements, involves objects that are broken up and reassembled in an abstract form. Cubist artists effectively represent objects in their most complete form by combining all different angles of an object or scene into a single image. Each person interprets art differently; the meaning of art lies in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, artists must incorporate elements which appeal to the human brain and its analytical processes. The many works from the Cubist movement, primarily those of Pablo Ruiz Picasso, prove effective to observers because of his thorough understanding of the brain’s psychological networking.

Some background knowledge on the artists of the Cubist movement will help justify claims I make during the analysis of their many works. Pablo Ruiz Picasso and George Braque teamed up from 1908 to 1911 to create landscapes and other images made of painted “little cubes,” which was later defined as Cubism. Many of the artists’ paintings during this time period are so similar that it is difficult to distinguish between the two. They primarily focused on breaking down and analyzing form by painting angular forms and geometric shapes. Picasso particularly enjoyed painting musical instruments, still-life objects, and his friends. He was so prolific during his lifetime, that his works are divided into four main periods: the Blue Period (1901-1904), the Rose Period (1905-1906), the African-Influenced period (1908-1909), and the Cubism Period (1909-1910). Each of these periods incorporates different elements of psychological theory, and the Cubist Period will be explored further throughout this paper.

Picasso’s works display the artist’s understanding of psychological concepts of perception and sensation. According to Saul Kassin, Gestalt psychology concerns the idea that “the whole (perception) is different from the sum of its parts (sensation),” and that individuals tend to group collections of sizes, shapes, colors and other features into perceptual wholes (Kassin 112). The first gestalt principle of perceptual organization is that people automatically focus on some objects in the perceptual field to the exclusion of others. We focus on the figure, while everything else fades into the ground. Picasso took advantage of this psychological principle in his very first painting, Picador. When you first glance at this painting, the man dressed in yellow sitting on the brown horse almost pops off of the page. Though there are certainly observers present in the background, we do not notice them initially. This results from the contrasting colors between the jockey’s vibrant costume and the background’s brown color scheme. Our brains automatically focus on one object, while everything else requires a second glance to discover. The different levels of depth make the painting appear more life-like and realistic. Although Picasso painted this piece prior to his Cubism Period, it demonstrates his thorough understanding of the psychological process of the human brain.

The Glass, painted in autumn of 1911, corresponds to the gestalt principle of simplicity, where “people tend to group elements that combine to form a good figure and organize forms in the simplest way possible” (Weiten 105). The axis of this painting is moved dramatically toward the right, and the various sharp, angled, geometric shapes combine to produce an abstract representation of a wine glass. The Cleveland Museum of Art explains that “the shapes with which he suggests the glass do have a prismatic effect, giving that sense of transparency and refraction of light he must have desired.” Picasso arranged the shapes in such a way that mimics taking a snapshot of a still object from every angle possible. Analytic Cubism is like a puzzle; as observers, we have to organize the pieces as we see fit. The human brain sees all the various triangles, and somehow organizes them into the wine glass which Picasso intends to portray. Steven Lehar explains that neural processing takes our visual perception of an item and generates a “fully spatial virtual-reality replica of the external world in an internal representation” (Lehar). This means that our brains organize our perceptions and put them together to form an image. You could see The Glass as a complicated, many-sided figure, but given the inherent preference for simplicity, you are more likely to see it as an overlapping of shapes to produce a single image.

Depth perception involves the brain’s interpretation of visual cues that indicate how near or far away objects are. This psychological element is incorporated into all forms of art, specifically into Picasso’s works during the Analytical Cubist movement. For example, Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table, an oil-on-canvas piece from 1909, effectively illustrates how light and shadow can create an impression of three-dimensional forms. In this painting, Picasso purposely uses more vibrant colors than in other typical works of the time to create the visual illusion that the images in the painting are three-dimensional. Despite the rigid, two-dimensional shapes used to create the images, the wooden table seems to jump off the canvas. As with The Glass, Picasso eliminates the central perspective, and splits up individual forms into various shapes. Interestingly, I discovered that if the painting is turned upside-down, it appears that the folded table ledge is behind the horizontal table surface; however, when you look at the painting as intended by Picasso, the folded table ledge appears closer to you than the horizontal surface does. This is an example of a visual illusion, or an apparently inexplicable discrepancy between the appearance of a visual stimulus and its physical realtity (Weiten 109). In Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table, Picasso incorporates shadow and light with the differing color scheme to produce the visual illusion of a three-dimensional object.

Pablo Ruiz Picasso certainly left a permanent imprint on the world of art. His countless works, especially Picador, The Glass, and Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table, display his clear understanding of the human brain’s perceptual and analytical processes. Many theories of psychology, or the science which “studies behavior and the physiological and cognitive processes that underlie it,” are evident in Picasso’s contributions to the Cubist movement (Weiten 109). Picasso’s incorporation of these psychological principles has classified his works as timeless and allowed observers worldwide to identify with his paintings. Without Pablo Ruiz Picasso’s foundation of the Cubist Movement, the world of art would not be the same today.

Works Cited

Lehar, Steven. “Gestalt isomorphism and the primacy of subjective conscious experience; A Gestalt Bubble Model.” UNC-CH Library Online. Academic Search Premier. < direct="true&db="aph&an="12612580">.

Weiten, Wayne. "Achieving Self-Control Through Behavior Modification." Psychology: Themes and Variations. Ed. Michelle Sordi. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2005. 185-7.

Kassin, Saul. Psychology: Fourth Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2004.