Proto-Cubism (also referred to as Protocubism, Early Cubism, and Pre-Cubism or Précubisme) is an intermediary transition phase in the

history of art The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetic vis ...

chronologically extending from 1906 to 1910. Evidence suggests that the production of proto-Cubist paintings resulted from a wide-ranging series of experiments, circumstances, influences and conditions, rather than from one isolated static event, trajectory, artist or discourse. With its roots stemming from at least the late 19th century, this period is characterized by a move towards the radical geometrization of form and a reduction or limitation of the color palette (in comparison with

Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...

). It is essentially the first experimental and exploratory phase of an

art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defi ...

that would become altogether more extreme, known from the spring of 1911 as

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

. Proto-Cubist artworks typically depict objects in geometric schemas of cubic or conic shapes. The illusion of classical perspective is progressively stripped away from objective representation to reveal the constructive essence of the physical world (not just as seen). The term is applied not only to works of this period by

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

and

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is ...

, but to a range of art produced in France during the early 1900s, by such artists as

Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...

Jean Metzinger Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...

Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise o ...

Henri Le Fauconnier Henri Victor Gabriel Le Fauconnier (July 5, 1881 – December 25, 1946) was a French Cubist painter born in Hesdin. Le Fauconnier was seen as one of the leading figures among the Montparnasse Cubists. At the 1911 Salon des Indépendants Le Fa ...

Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually modified into a more figurative, po ...

, and to variants developed elsewhere in Europe. Proto-Cubist works embrace many disparate styles, and would affect diverse individuals, groups and movements, ultimately forming a fundamental stage in the history of

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...

of the 20th-century.Christopher Green, 2009, Cubism, MoMA, Grove Art Online, Oxford University Press
/ref>

History and influences

The building blocks that led to the construction of proto-Cubist works are diverse in nature. Neither homogeneous nor isotropic, the progression of each individual artist was unique. The influences that characterize this transition period range from

Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction a ...

, to

Symbolism Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: Arts * Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism ** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries ** Russian sym ...

Les Nabis Les Nabis (French: les nabis, ) were a group of young French artists active in Paris from 1888 until 1900, who played a large part in the transition from impressionism and academic art to abstract art, symbolism and the other early movements of ...

and

Neo-Impressionism Neo-Impressionism is a term coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Seurat's most renowned masterpiece, '' A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'', marked the beg ...

, the works of

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

Georges Seurat Georges Pierre Seurat ( , , ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough su ...

Paul Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

to African,

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

ian,

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...

n, Native American,

Iberian sculpture Iberian sculpture, a subset of Iberian art, describes the various sculptural styles developed by the Iberians from the Bronze Age up to the Roman conquest. For this reason it is sometimes described as Pre-Roman Iberian sculpture. Almost all ex ...

, and Iberian schematic art. In anticipation of Proto-Cubism the idea of form inherent in art since the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...

had been questioned. The

romanticist Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: British ...

, the realist

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...

, and practically all the

Impressionists Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passa ...

had abandoned a significant portion of

Classicism Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aestheti ...

in favor of ''immediate sensation''. The ''dynamic'' expression favored by these artists presented a challenge in contrast to the ''static'' means of expression promoted by the Academia. The representation of fixed objects occupying a space, was replaced by dynamic colors and form in constant evolution. Yet other means would be necessary to jettison completely the long-standing foundation that surrounded them. While the freedom of Impressionism had certainly jeopardized its integrity, it would take another generation of artists, not just to bring the edifice down piece by piece, but to rebuild an entirely new configuration, ''cube by cube''.Alex Mittelmann, ''State of the Modern Art World, The Essence of Cubism and its Evolution in Time'', 2011
/ref>

Cézanne

Several predominant factors mobilized the shift from a more representational art form to one that would become increasingly abstract; one of the most important would be found directly within the works of

and exemplified in a widely discussed letter addressed to Émile Bernard dated 15 April 1904. Cézanne ambiguously writes: "Interpret nature in terms of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone; put everything in perspective, so that each side of an object, of a plane, recedes toward a central point."Erle Loran, ''Cézannes Composition: Analysis of His Form with Diagrams and Photographs of His Motifs''
Foreword by Richard Shiff, University of California Press, April 30, 2006 In addition to his preoccupation for the simplification of geometric structure, Cézanne was concerned with the means of rendering the effect of volume and space. His rather classical color-modulating system consisted of changing colors from warm to cool as the object turns away from the source of light. Cézanne's departure from classicism, however, would be best summarized in the treatment and of application of the paint itself; a process in which his brushstrokes played an important role. The complexity of surface variations (or modulations) with overlapped shifting planes, seemingly arbitrary contours, contrasts and values combined to produce a strong patchwork effect. Increasingly in his later works, as Cézanne achieves a greater freedom, the patchwork becomes larger, bolder, more arbitrary, more dynamic and increasingly abstract. As the color planes acquire greater formal independence, defined objects and structures begin to lose their identity. The art critic Louis Vauxcelles acknowledged the importance of Cézanne to the Cubists in his article titled ''From Cézanne to Cubism'' (published in ''Eclair'', 1920). For Vauxcelles the influence had a two-fold character, both 'architectural' and 'intellectual'. He stressed the statement made by Émile Bernard that Cézanne's optics were "not in the eye, but in his brain". With both his courage and experience to draw from, Cézanne created a hybrid art-form. He combined on the one hand the imitative and the ''immobile'', a system left over from the Renaissance, and the ''mobile'' on the other; together to forming a hybrid. His own generation would see in his contradictory codes nothing more than impotence, unaware of his intentions. However, the next generation would see in Cézanne greatness, precisely because of this duality. Cézanne was seen simultaneously as a classicist by those who chose to see in his work the imitation of nature and perspective, and as a revolutionary by those who saw in him a revolt against imitation and classical perspective. Timid, yet clearly manifest, was the will to deconstruct. Artists at the forefront of the Parisian art scene at the outset of the 20th century would not fail to notice these tendencies inherent in the work of Cézanne, and decided to venture still further.Robert L. Herbert, 1968, ''Neo-Impressionism'', The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York Avant-garde artists in Paris (including

André Lhote André Lhote (5 July 1885 – 24 January 1962) was a French Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes and still life. He was also active and influential as a teacher and writer on art. Early life and education Lhote was born ...

Othon Friesz Achille-Émile Othon Friesz (6 February 1879 – 10 January 1949), who later called himself Othon Friesz, a native of Le Havre, was a French artist of the Fauvist movement. Biography Othon Friesz was born in Le Havre, the son of a long line of ...

Raoul Dufy Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textile as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted ...

Maurice de Vlaminck Maurice de Vlaminck (4 April 1876 – 11 October 1958) was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse, he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 ...

Alexander Archipenko Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (also referred to as Olexandr, Oleksandr, or Aleksandr; uk, Олександр Порфирович Архипенко, Romanized: Olexandr Porfyrovych Arkhypenko; February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian and American ...

and Joseph Csaky) had begun reevaluating their own work in relation to that of Cézanne. A retrospective of Cézanne's paintings had been held at the

Salon d'Automne The Salon d'Automne (; en, Autumn Salon), or Société du Salon d'automne, is an art exhibition held annually in Paris, France. Since 2011, it is held on the Champs-Élysées, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, in mid-October. The f ...

of 1904. Current works were exhibited at the Salon d'Automne of 1905 and 1906, followed by two commemorative retrospectives after his death in 1907. The influence generated by the work of Cézanne suggests a means by which some of these artist made the transition from

, Divisionism and

.Joann Moser, 1985, Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, ''Pre-Cubist Works, 1904-1909'', The University of Iowa Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Trust, University of Washington Press, pp. 34, 35 Salon d'Automne, 1904, Salle Cézanne

Cézanne syntax didn't just ripple outwards over the sphere, touching those that would become Cubists in France, Futurists in Italy and

Die Brücke The Brücke (Bridge), also Künstlergruppe Brücke or KG Brücke was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later memb ...

, Der Blaue Reiter, Expressionists in Germany, it also created currents that flowed throughout Parisian art world threatening to destabilize (if not topple) at least three of the core foundations of the academia: the geometrical method of perspective used to create the illusion of form, space and depth since the Renaissance;

Figuratism Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real object sources and so is, by definition, representational. The term is often in contrast to abstract ...

, derived from real object sources (and therefore representational), and

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, Epistemology, knowledge, Ethics, values, Philosophy of ...

. At the time, it was assumed that all art aims at beauty, and anything that wasn't beautiful couldn't be counted as art. The proto-Cubists revolted against the concept that objective beauty was central to the definition of art.

Symbolism

In his ''Sources of Cubism and Futurism'', art historian Daniel Robbins reviews the

Symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and real ...

roots of modern art, exploring the literary source of both

Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

painting in France and

Futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, an ...

in Italy.Daniel Robbins, ''Sources of Cubism and Futurism'', Art Journal, Vol. 41, No. 4, (Winter 1981): pp. 324-27
Published by College Art Association The revolution of ''free verse'' with which Gustave Kahn was associated, was a principle example of the correspondence between progress in art and politics; a growing conviction among young artists. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti acknowledged his indebtedness to it, as a source of modern artistic liberty. " Paul Fort's Parisian review ''Vers et Prose''", writes Robbins, "as well as the Abbaye de Créteil, cradle of both Jules Romain's Unanimism and Henri-Martin Barzun's ''Dramatisme'', had emphasized the importance of this new formal device". Kahn's free verse was revolutionary because, in his own words, "free verse is mobile, like mobile perspective". In classical French poetry, writes Robbins, "meaning and rhythm were united, and sense and rhythm stopped simultaneously. The unity consisted in the number and rhythm of vowels and consonants together forming an organic and independent cell". The system began to break down, according to Kahn, with the

Romantic Romantic may refer to: Genres and eras * The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries ** Romantic music, of that era ** Romantic poetry, of that era ** Romanticism in science, of that e ...

poets when they permitted a stop for the ear, with ''no'' stop in meaning. This is akin to

Jacques Villon Jacques Villon (July 31, 1875 – June 9, 1963), also known as Gaston Duchamp, was a French Cubist and abstract painter and printmaker. Early life Born Émile Méry Frédéric Gaston Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in Normandy, France, he cam ...

's drawings and prints of 1908 and 1909, notes Robbins, "where the hatching lines that create a shape do not stop at the contour, but continue beyond, taking on an independent life". The next step, wrote Kahn, was to impart unity and cohesion by means of a union of related consonants, or the repetition of similar vowel sounds (assonance). Poets were thus free to create novel and complex rhythms, with, if so desired, inversions that destroyed the beat of the

strophe A strophe () is a poetic term originally referring to the first part of the ode in Ancient Greek tragedy, followed by the antistrophe and epode. The term has been extended to also mean a structural division of a poem containing stanzas of vary ...

. As Kahn noted, this was shocking because traditionally it was the regularity of the strophe that gave the reader meaning. Symbolist concepts vacated the

metronome A metronome, from ancient Greek μέτρον (''métron'', "measure") and νομός (nomós, "custom", "melody") is a device that produces an audible click or other sound at a regular interval that can be set by the user, typically in beats pe ...

-like symmetry and introduced ''liberty'', ''flexibility'' and ''elasticity''. Each was to find her own rhythmic force. The classicists feared that the dismantling of meter by the decadent Symbolist 'barbarians' would undermine the French language, and thus attack the very foundations of social order. ''Elasticity'', one of Kahn's favorite words used to describe free verse, would become the title of well known Futurist works by

Umberto Boccioni Umberto Boccioni (, ; 19 October 1882 – 17 August 1916) was an influential Italian painter and sculptor. He helped shape the revolutionary aesthetic of the Futurism movement as one of its principal figures. Despite his short life, his approach ...

, as well as two paintings by Roger de La Fresnaye, a proto-Cubist work and later a cubist work entitled ''Marie Ressort'' (''ressort'' meaning elasticity or spring). These paintings, writes Robbins, are an homage to the prose of Jules Laforgue, whose poems concerned the life of his sister Marie.

Pablo Picasso

In 1899 Picasso rejected academic study and joined a circle of avant-garde artists and writers known as '' Modernistes'' (or ''decadentes''). Meeting at

Els Quatre Gats Els Quatre Gats (; ) is a café in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain that famously became a popular meeting place for famous artists throughout the modernist period in Catalonia, known as ''Modernisme''. The café opened on 12 June 1897 in the famous Ca ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ...

, they assimilated trends such as symbolism and

Art nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Moder ...

, characterized by contour lines, simplified form and unnatural colors. Yet, in addition to the influence of Théophile Steinlen and

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the l ...

, that of

Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...

and

El Greco Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( el, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El ...

can be seen in Picasso's work of the period. A significant innovation of El Greco's later works is the interweaving of form and space; a reciprocal relationship is developed between the two that unifies the painted surface. This interweaving would re-emerge three centuries later in the works of Cézanne and

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is kn ...

.M. Lambraki-Plaka, ''El Greco'', 57–59 Adapting these style, the artist produced numerous portraits of friends such as

Carlos Casagemas Carles Antoni Cosme Damià Casagemas i Coll (Carlos Casagemas) (September 27, 1880, in Barcelona, Spain – February 17, 1901, in Paris, France) was a Spanish painter and poet. He is known for his friendship with Pablo Picasso, who painted severa ...

and Jaime Sabartès (Sabartès Seated). The modernists also devoted themselves to political anarchy and other social causes, including sympathy for the poor, denizens and the underclass; subjects that would soon emerge in the paintings of Picasso's Blue Period (a color associated with despair and melancholy, blue was commonly used in Symbolist painting). El Greco - View of Toledo - Google Art Project

El Greco - View of Toledo - Google Art Project

The first artist who seems to have noticed the structural code built into the morphology of late El Greco was

, one of the forerunners of

.M. Lambraki-Plaka, ''El Greco—The Greek'', 49 Comparative morphological analyses of the two painters works reveal common elements: the distortion of the human body, the reddish and unworked backgrounds, and the similarities in the rendering of space.E. Foundoulaki, ''From El Greco to Cézanne'', 105–106 According to Brown, "Cézanne and El Greco are spiritual brothers despite the centuries which separate them".J. Brown, ''El Greco of Toledo'', 28 Fry observed that Cézanne drew from "his great discovery of the permeation of every part of the design with a uniform and continuous plastic theme".M. Lambraki-Plaka, ''From El Greco to Cézanne'', 15 In 1904 Picasso moved to Paris, where the work of post-impressionist painters Van Gogh, Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin were exhibited at galleries and Salons. Rapidly assimilating these influences, he adapted to new styles and techniques, as the use of bright unmixed colors. The

Symbolists Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

, and

during his

Blue Period Blue Period may refer to: *Picasso's Blue Period The Blue Period ( es, Período Azul) is a term used to define the works produced by Spanish painter Pablo Picasso between 1901 and 1904 when he painted essentially monochromatic paintings in shades ...

, drew on the cool tonality of El Greco and the anatomy of his ascetic figures. While Picasso was working on , he visited his friend

Ignacio Zuloaga Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta (July 26, 1870October 31, 1945) was a Spanish painter, born in Eibar ( Guipuzcoa), near the monastery of Loyola. Family He was the son of metalworker and damascener Plácido Zuloaga and grandson of the organizer and ...

in his Parisian atelier and studied El Greco's '' Opening of the Fifth Seal'' (owned by Zuloaga since 1897). The relation between and the ''Opening of the Fifth Seal'' was pinpointed in the early 1980s, when the stylistic similarities and the relationship between the motifs of both works were analysed. Art historian Ron Johnson was the first to focus on the relationship between the two paintings. According to John Richardson, ''Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'' "turns out to have a few more answers to give once we realize that the painting owes at least as much to El Greco as Cézanne".J. Richardson, ''Picasso's Apocalyptic Whorehouse'', 40-47R. Johnson, ''Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon'', 102–113 Picasso's Rose Period turns toward the theme of the fairground and circus performers; subjects often depicted in

Post-Impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction aga ...

romantic Romantic may refer to: Genres and eras * The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries ** Romantic music, of that era ** Romantic poetry, of that era ** Romanticism in science, of that e ...

and symbolist art and verse (from Baudelaire and Rimbaud to Daumier and Seurat), where melancholy and social alienation pervade the saltimbanque. Corresponding to the tone of Picasso, acrobats represent both mystery and enchantment in the poems of

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French French poetry, poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish-Belarusian, Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered ...

written in the same period. In 1906, working at the Bateau Lavoir, Picasso continued to explore new directions; portraying monumental female figures standing in abstract interior spaces. Now, in addition to the bathers of Cézanne, Spanish romanesque art and Iberian sculpture provide a prominent influences for Picasso. Around this time he also created a self-portrait depicting himself as something of a latter-day Cézanne.

Albert Gleizes

The proto-Cubism of

too bares its roots in Symbolism. In his father's Montmartre workshop (around 1899), Gleizes joins a childhood friend, the poet

René Arcos René (''born again'' or ''reborn'' in French) is a common first name in French-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and German-speaking countries. It derives from the Latin name Renatus. René is the masculine form of the name (Renée being the feminine ...

.Peter Brooke, ''Albert Gleizes, Chronology of his life, 1881-1953''
/ref> In Amiens (1904) he meets the painters

Berthold Mahn Berthold or Berchtold is a Germanic given name and surname. It is derived from two elements, ''berht'' meaning "bright" and ''wald'' meaning "(to) rule". It may refer to: *Bertholdt Hoover, a fictional character in the anime/manga series ''Attack o ...

, Jacques d'Otémar and Josué Gaboriaud, as well as the printer, Lucien Linard, who will soon run the printshop at the Abbaye de Créteil. At the same time, through Jean Valmy Baysse, an art critic (and soon historian of the

Comédie-Française The Comédie-Française () or Théâtre-Français () is one of the few state theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real ...

) who was a friend of the Gleizes family, René Arcos is invited to participate on a new journal, ''La Vie'', in collaboration with Alexandre Mercereau, Charles Vildrac and

Georges Duhamel Georges Duhamel (; ; 30 June 1884 – 13 April 1966) was a French author, born in Paris. Duhamel trained as a doctor, and during World War I was attached to the French Army. In 1920, he published ''Confession de minuit'', the first of a serie ...

. In 1905 the group of writers and painters is joined by the Symbolist poet and writer Henri-Martin Barzun. Gleizes is instrumental in forming the Association

Ernest Renan Joseph Ernest Renan (; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, expert of Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote infl ...

, launched in December at the Théâtre Pigalle, with the aim of countering the influence of militarist propaganda while providing the elements of a popular and secular culture. Gleizes is responsible for the ''Literary'' and ''Artistic'' section which organises street theatre and poetry readings. Throughout 1906, Gleizes and his associates pursue an idea proposed by Charles Vildrac of establishing of a self-supporting artists community which would enable them to develop their art free of commercial considerations. A suitable house and grounds is found in Créteil, then a small village outside Paris. The rent for the first six months is provided by Barzun through a small inheritance. In December, Gleizes and Vildrac move in. At the outset of 1907 the Abbaye de Créteil consists of Gleizes, Arcos and Vildrac with his wife Rose, sister of Duhamel. Duhamel himself, like Barzun, appears intermittently. The group is joined by the musician Albert Doyen, later to become known as founder of the ''Fêtes du Peuple''. Alexandre Mercereau arrives in the Spring of 1907 with a Russian wife who speaks no French. The group supports itself through the fine quality printing run by Linard and Gleizes. Occasional visitors include the painters Berthold Mahn, Jacques d'Otémar and Henri Doucet. The poets of the Abbaye, Arcos, Duhamel and Barzun, develop a distinctive style dealing in ''free verse'', with epic subjects influenced by

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...

, Emil Verhaeren and, especially, the French epic Symbolist poet René Ghil. Ghil developed his ideas on language, at first, in close relation with Symbolist poet

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of t ...

. Ghil held open evenings every Friday, attended by the members of the Abbaye. The Abbaye published books by a wide variety of authors including Robert de Montesqiou, model for the Duc de Charlus in

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel '' In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous En ...

's ''A la recherche de temps perdu'', the Polish anarchist and art theorist Mecislas Golberg, and the well-known collection of poems ''La Vie Unanime'', by

Jules Romains Jules Romains (born Louis Henri Jean Farigoule; 26 August 1885 – 14 August 1972) was a French poet and writer and the founder of the Unanimism literary movement. His works include the play ''Knock ou le Triomphe de la médecine'', and a cycle ...

. ''La Vie Unanime'' was the result of a vision Romains had in 1903, writes Peter Brooke, "in which he had seen all the phenomena of daily life as intimately related like the different parts of a single huge beast". On the strength of its association with Romains the Abbaye de Créteil is often described as 'Unanimist'. During the Summer of 1908 Gleizes and Mercereau organise a great ''Journée portes ouvertes'' at the Abbaye, with poetry readings, music and exhibitions. Participants included the Italian Symbolist poet, soon to be the theorist of

, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and the Romanian sculptor

Constantin Brâncuși Constantin Brâncuși (; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century and a pioneer of modernism, ...

. Gleizes' own painting in this period shifts from Post-Impressionism towards a fluid, linear style, with close relations to Symbolism and

. When the Abbaye closed in January 1908, Gleizes moved into a studio situated in

9th arrondissement of Paris The 9th arrondissement of Paris (''IXe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as the neuvième (; "ninth"). The arrondissement, called Opéra, is loc ...

, rue du Delta, with his friend the painter and poet

Henri Doucet Henri Lucien Doucet (23 August 1856 – 31 December 1895) was a French figure and portrait painter and pastellist, born in Paris. Biography Doucet studied under Jules Joseph Lefebvre, Lefebvre and Gustave Boulanger, Boulanger, and in 1880 won t ...

. Though his subject matter is always taken from an unsentimental observation of the world, writes Brooke, 'Gleizes has a marked preference for urban and semi-urban scenes with an emphasis on human labour'. Though he often uses bright colors there is little or no interest in either Fauvism or Divisionism, the two schools that now dominate the Parisian

Avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

. In 1909 Gleizes' evolution towards a more linear proto-Cubist style continues with greater emphasis on clear, simplified, construction; '' Les Bords de la Marne (The Banks of the Marne)''. At the

Gleizes is impressed by the work of

, especially his portrait of the poet Pierre Jean Jouve. Le Fauconnier's portraits and his landscapes painted in Brittany ('' Ploumanac'h'') show the intention of simplifying form similar to that of Gleizes. The two painters meet through the intermediary of Alexandre Mercereau. Gleizes exhibits his proto-Cubist works ''Portrait de René Arcos'' and '' L'Arbre'' at the 1910 Salon des Indépendants, two paintings in which the emphasis on simplified form clearly overwhelms the representational aspect of the works. The same tendency is evident in

's ''Portrait of Apollinaire'' (1909) exhibited at the same Salon. In his ''Anecdotiques'', 16 October 1911, Apollinaire writes: "I am honoured to be the first model of a Cubist painter, Jean Metzinger, for a portrait exhibited in 1910 at the Salon des Indépendants."Guillaume Apollinaire, ''Anecdotiques'', Jean Metzinger, ''Portrait of Apollinaire'', 16 October, 1911, p. 44
Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) It was not only the first Cubist portrait, according to Apollinaire, but it was also the first great portrait of the poet exhibite