Cubism, Expressionism, and Avant-Garde Movements

Breaking with the Past

The beginning of the 20th century was a time when art decided to break with five centuries of tradition. Renaissance perspective, realistic technique, classical subjects—all were simultaneously rejected by several movements in different countries. Why such a radical break? Because the world had changed: telegraph, telephone, photography, automobile, and cinema transformed perceptions of space and time. Art based on a single point of view and linear narrative seemed outdated.

Cubism: Multiple Points of View

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) and Georges Braque (1882–1963) together developed Cubism in 1907–1914. Inspiration—Cézanne and African mask. Principle: the object should be shown simultaneously from several points of view, disassembled into constituent parts, and reassembled on a plane.

Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” (1907) was the moment of rupture. Five nude female figures, their faces resembling African masks; the space is broken into planes; there is no single point of view. This is a “shocking” painting—even Picasso’s friends were perplexed.

Analytical Cubism (1908–1912): almost monochromatic, broken up into facets, images in which the subject is barely recognizable. Synthetic Cubism (1912–1914): real objects are pasted into the paintings—newspapers, labels, pieces of fabric. The first genuine collage in history.

Cubism is important because it articulates the principle: there is no single “correct” point of view. This is the visual equivalent of relativism. Things are different from different sides—and a painting can show this simultaneously.

Expressionism: The Internal Is More Important than the External

Expressionism (German, Austrian), simultaneously with Cubism, makes a different choice: not multiple points of view on an external object, but internal experience as the primary reality. “Die Brücke” (“The Bridge”, Dresden, 1905) and “Der Blaue Reiter” (“The Blue Rider”, Munich, 1911)—two key movements.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) depicts the Berlin street world: screaming colors, angular lines, a sense of alienation. “Street, Berlin” (1913)—a crowd of elegantly dressed people, but the faces are expressionless, movements mechanical. The person in the crowd is lonely.

Egon Schiele (1890–1918)—an Austrian expressionist, a student of Klimt, who died of Spanish flu at the age of 28. His figures writhe, twist, are exposed—literally and metaphorically. Authorities arrested him over “erotic” art; his drawings are now among the most expensive in the world.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) goes further: he invents abstraction. “First Abstract Watercolor” (1910)—there are no objects, only color and form. His theory: colors have spiritual and psychological significance independent of subjects. Blue—spirituality, yellow—aggression, green—passivity. Painting is like music: direct impact without the mediation of meaning.

Dadaism and Surrealism: Against Sense and Reason

The First World War (1914–1918) destroys faith in progress and reason. Dadaism (Zurich, 1916)—the absurd movement: if reason led to war, reason must be rejected. Marcel Duchamp exhibits “Fountain” (1917)—an upside-down urinal signed “R. Mutt”. This is “ready-made”: an industrial object placed in the context of art—and becomes art. The question: what is art—object or context?

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) and René Magritte (1898–1967) in Surrealism combine dream and reality. Dalí’s “The Persistence of Memory” (1931)—soft watches on a desolate landscape. Melting clocks—this is the time of dreams, subjective time, opposed to the objective time of reason. Magritte’s “The Treachery of Images” (1929): painted pipe, caption “This is not a pipe.” The image of a thing is not the thing. This is semiotics through painting.

Avant-garde and Management

Cubism proposes a management principle: a problem should be examined from several points of view simultaneously. “What does the seller see? What does the client see? What does the engineer see?”—this is a cubist analysis of a business problem.

Duchamp (ready-made) poses a question about context: value is created not by the object, but by the context of its presentation. This is a direct lesson for product design, branding, and marketing.

Question for reflection: Cubism shows an object simultaneously from several points of view. When was the last time you deliberately assembled a “cubist map” of a problem—different perspectives at once? What did that change?