Cubism, Orphism And Futurism In Modern Art

Register to read the introduction… . Although theses three modern styles varied, the works involved all occupied a new and more complex space. Mel Gooding explains this as a ‘trend in modern art away from the representation of recognisable objects in pictorial space and towards presentation of a painting or sculpture as a real object in real space.’ Up until this time the pictorial space created in the art work aimed to create the illusion of a real pictorial space for the spectator. The technique of one point perspective which was very much adhered to during the renaissance created a space in the picture which vanished into a single point in order to replicate the three dimensionality of our vision. This coupled with the use of shading and toning to accentuate the weight of form worked to create the illusion of looking into a realistic space. The use of formal conventions such as perspective and tone are illusionistic and therefore they were abandoned by these modern artists who were inspired to achieve a more conceptual representation of space and form. For example, Braque said of Cubism ‘what most attracted me and what was the governing principle of Cubism, was the materialisation of this new space which I sensed.’ The art movement of Cubism was in fact sparked by the idea of exploring a new anti naturalistic space which can be seen to be developed and refined throughout the phases of cubism. The driving force behind the experimentations with form that developed cubism was the rejection of the deceptive singular viewpoint perspective which governed the illusionism of representational …show more content…
This was a movement that found significance in the symphony of sensations that colours are able to stimulate when crafted together. Because modernist artists no longer wanted to be confined to naturalism they were free to experiment with the effect of the relationships of colour. This involved the colour theory of contrasting and complementary colours and the optimum placement of these colours together to enhance hues. Delaunay, a key Orphist artist was able to develop these colour techniques from his studies of a chemist, Michael-Eugene Chevreul’s treatise, On the Law of the Simultaneous Contrast of Colours. This treatise dealt with the concept that a colour is observed differently according to its surrounding colours. An example of a modern work based upon the use of the application of colour techniques is Homage to Bleriot by Robert Delaunay. This work contains various circular forms all made up of highly organised bright block colours. The colours of these circular forms, which are mostly primary, are surrounded by a background of opposing colours such as a yellow, green and red image surrounded by blue, red and green respectively. It is this complete contrast which illuminates the effect of the colours to a point where they are so much more successful in their specific function when juxtaposed in this purposeful way. It is not only this illumination that the use of these colour techniques create but a pictorial space. A depth is created by the advancing and receding of colours according to their characteristics. These techniques had not been used in traditional representational art and are another example of how these abstract artists redefined accepted artist