Historical Context Ruins Perception

Every form of art has its own particular style, making it interesting to observers and compelling people to dig deeper into its meaning. Artists throughout history have strived to make viewers think more deeply about their artwork by including various optical illusions or mind tricks into their works. Most, however, have failed to represent anything more than just a simple imitation of real life. What is even more important is being able to understand what has been created by a painting based on one’s own perception, and not what historical context or the artist says about the painting. By indirectly showing intrinsic qualities of a person/object rather than focusing on the more exterior qualities in realism, Cubists (especially Picasso), are particularly successful at persuading individuals to develop their own perceptions about art, which are changed with gained knowledge about the painting’s historical context.

little background on Picasso is necessary before I completely jump into analyzing a few pieces out of his cubist period. Picasso, who was born in 1881 in Málaga, Spain, was an artist’s son and his skill was recognized early in his childhood. Picasso was able to produce his first painting, “Picador,” at the ripe old age of eight, which can be seen here. I would be willing to bet that many people who have been painting for years would love to achieve something so great at such a young age. Most of us are still using markers and crayons in art class at that point. He went on and studied art in Barcelona and Madrid but eventually lived in Paris, France. Picasso had a greatly innovative mind and is thought to be one of the best artists of the 20^th century. Along with Georges Braque, a very close contemporary of Picasso, cubism was created. A name coined from an insult by Henri Matisse when he referred to one of Braque’s early cubist works as “Petites Cubes,” or small cubes and the name just stuck (Study Art). Picasso was amazingly prolific in his lifetime, so much that his works are typically broken up into the Blue Period (1901-1904), Rose Period (1905-1907), African-influenced Period (1908-1909), and last of all Cubism (1909-1919) (Wikipedia). It is funny that Matisse made his insulting “cubes” comment about Braque’s painting because John Ratey in his book, A User’s Guide to the Brain, talks about how people perceive things in pieces that the brain later puts together, which is especially delayed in autistic patients (Ratey, 306). The cubists, based their work on this same principle, and created a brilliant and more cognitive art form where something is presented much in the way that one’s brain actually perceive anything—in pieces or multiple glances.

A major downfall with cubist works, or most any painting, is that historical context can ruin an individual’s entire perception about a painting, and this holds true for Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907). Although some historians don’t recognize it as a cubist work, it maintains most of the qualities, and was certainly a major influence on cubism. Paul M. Laporte suggests in his article “Cubism and Science,” featured in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, that while cubism was a highly intellectual movement, it was very little centered on conveying its own theory or program in each painting (Laporte, 244). His argument is very relevant to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon because basically whatever you want to see, you will see if you don’t have sufficient background on the painting. If looked at by an observer, uneducated about its background, he/she would find that it is hard to determine exactly what the painting is trying to portray. Who would guess that the women portrayed are prostitutes in a brothel wearing African masks to scare off sexual diseases (MoMA.org)? The answer would be, not many. Yes, the women are standing in what some may call erotic positions, and judging by the color tone of the painting, one can imagine they are without clothes. The sharp angles and lines that make up the outlines of the women, and the multi-perspective viewpoint give the painting some cubist characteristics. I think, however, that it remains difficult to perceive these women as prostitutes in a brothel. The absence of men makes me think that they could just be some women in an ancient culture doing a rain dance for all I know. Picasso actually made nearly 100 sketches of this painting before he finalized it, and some did include men (Wikipedia). Men in the picture would certainly clarify that these women may be promiscuous, but Picasso maybe omitted them on purpose so an individual’s mind might perceive its own view. Picasso’s contemporary, Braque, so aptly states that “There is no certitude but in what the mind conceives” (Laporte, 247). This, I think, is the beauty of cubism because no certain view is being forced on the observer.

Historical context stands as a key factor that changes an individual’s perception about a painting, and this is especially applicable to more abstract work like cubism over a more realist painting. In an article presented in Philosophical Quarterly, Nick Zangwill references to Kendall Walton’s argument in “Categories of Art,” suggesting background knowledge of a work changes the way we perceive it (Zangwill, 477). This background info is more likely to skew the perception of a cubist or abstract work than a realist painting because it is so hard to imagine what the artist is trying to convey in a cubist painting. A demonstration of this effect can be seen by observing a more realist painting such as David: The Death of Marat by Jacque’s Louis-David. This painting is obviously a murdered man who was attempting to write something while in a bath tub. This is what the mind sees at first glance if you had no information about what this painting was trying to depict. Yes, there is much more here to be known, discovered, and admired about this great piece of art, but the basic outline is given by your mind. This does not hold true for a cubist work like Les Demoiselles d’Avignon because the art is focused more outlining intrinsic qualities of an object/person rather than giving a truly accurate exterior depiction. The observer is to perceive exterior qualities based on the intrinsic qualities outlined by the artist. This perception, given historical context, can be ruined and alter your entire vision of the painting. To this end, cubists don’t want people to observe their works based on historical context, but rather wish that individuals let their own mind conceive the meaning. The paintings are purely subjective to who is viewing it, and not to what context an individual has about the painting. Regarding Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a little bit of historical info about the painting and/or what Picasso might have thought ruins my perception and turns what appears to be a cultural dance into a theme characteristic of an R-rated movie. The historical relevance provided about this painting is only one perspective of the painting and is not the final vision in everyone’s mind, and effectively this is what the cubists perfected.

Synthetic cubism produced Picasso’s Still Life with Chair Caning, which is infinitely more difficult to interpret and it is more likely that historical info will alter an observer’s perception. Synthetic cubism bordered almost on abstraction because, unlike analytic cubism where objects were broken into pieces for the observer to put back together, it centered on bringing together entirely different objects to make up a whole (Wikipedia). There are countless examples of this form, but more specifically Still Life with Chair Caning would be very typical of this period. My question is where do you begin with a painting like this? It’s not completely abstract or anything, but there is definitely a lot going here. According to Laporte’s article, the observer is forced to see all the objects in cubist works simultaneously just because the way they are arranged (Laporte, 251). This multi-perspective element can also be found in this painting, but because of the angles I perceive it as though I am looking at something from a bird’s-eye-view. Note that is just one possible perception. The role of the painting is not clearly distinguishable, and appears to me as an industrial scene of factories, dirt, and grime due to the darker colors employed. Letters appear in this painting which is also a major characteristic of synthetic cubism. The letters “JOU” don’t appear to mean anything to me, and may be a word of French or another foreign language. The vision of this painting is solely up to me, as I was not able to find relevant context to the paintings meanings. I can only rely on inferences in the title like “chair” and “caning.” A chair can be made out of materials such as wicker or rattan which is signified by “caning.” Now, with this knowledge, the fence-ish material in the middle of the painting looks like a seat of a chair, and the frame that surrounds the painting appears to be a rattan chair frame as well. This type of painting takes more thought than a realist painting, which Laporte affirms that cubism is “more cerebral” just because it makes the observer think so much. Picasso, with Still Life with Chair Caning was most successful in creating a piece that forces every spectator to make up their own mind about what is in the painting. Just imagine how perception of this painting would change with historical context and how it incredibly different from a realist work.

Picasso and Braque were not even close to understanding the imprint they had left on the art world with the creation of cubism. Innovators like Picasso dare to step outside the box, and the cubists took a leap out of the box because they believed that “art consists of creating not copying” and invented their own radical art form, a form giving multiple perspectives to any object or set of objects, which left interpretation of the objects to the observer. The new and tasteful technique has left lasting impressions, and has been the influence for many artists since their time. As seen, what you see holds true in your own mind if you are not given historical background to the work, otherwise your interpretation, like mine, will be skewed. Cubism is an entirely different form of art that Laporte aptly suggests can only be perceived correctly by its standards and not anything else’s (Laporte, 256).

Works Cited

Laporte, Paul M. "Cubism and Science." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 7 (1949): 243-256.

Ratey, John J. A User's Guide to the Brain. New York: Random House, 2001. 306.

Zangwill, Nick. "In Defence of Moderate Aesthetic Formalism." Philosophical Quaterly 50 (2000): 476-493.