Analytical Cubism
Art Style Invented by Pablo Picasso & Georges Braque.
Visual Arts Guide

Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (1909)
by Pablo Picasso.

Analytical Cubism (c.1909-12)

Picasso's Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (1910) ushered in the new style of Analytical Cubism. In this painting, Picasso disassembled a human figure into a series of flat transparent geometric plates that overlap and intersect at various angles. Now, suddenly all the cube-like imagery of his earlier proto-type Cubist painting has disappeared. Indeed, from hereon, there are no more cubes in Cubist art.

Analytical Cubism is the most austere and cerebral stage of the movement. During this period, the relatively solid masses of Braque and Picasso's early paintings gave way to a consistent process of composition in which the forms of the objects depicted are fragmented into a large number of small intricately hinged opaque and transparent planes that fuse with one another and with the surrounding space.

Girl With Mandolin (1910) by Picasso.

The pair favoured right-angle and straight-line construction although in some pictures - eg. Girl with a Mandolin (1910) by Picasso - some areas presented a sculpture-like effect. Typically, forms were compact and dense in the middle of the painting, growing more diffuse toward the edges. An example being Picasso's Portrait of Ambroise Vollard.

Lack of Colour

This emphasis on pictorial structure led to colour being downplayed, so as not to distract the viewer, and archetypal analytical cubist painting is virtually monochromatic, painted in muted browns or warm greys. This one-tone colour scheme was ideally suited to the portrayal of multiple layered views of the object.

Mandora (1909) by Georges Braque.

Similarity of Style

Both artists collaborated extremely closely during this period. As a craftsman's son, Braque was quick to fasten on new techniques, although his partner was able to use them more creatively. Examples of paintings which show how similiar the two artists were in style at this date - are Braque's The Portuguese (1911, Kunstmuseum, Basle) and Picasso's The Accordionist (1911, Guggenheim Museum, New York).

This analytical phase was shortly superceded by Synthetic Cubism.

Notable Paintings in the Analytical Cubist Style

Pablo Picasso:
Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (1910), Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.
Portrait of Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler (1910), Art Institute of Chicago.
Woman with a Guitar (1911), Museum of Modern Art, NYC.
Violin, Glass, Pipe and Anchor (1912)

Georges Braque:
Still Life with Fish (1909-10), Museum of Modern Art, NYC.
Mandora (1909-10), Tate, London.
Violin and Jug (1910), Kunstmuseum, Basel.
Violin and Candlestick (1910), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Violin and Palette (1910), Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, NYC.
Man with a Guitar (1911), Museum of Modern Art, NYC.
Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Mantepiece (1911)
Still Life with Glass, Dice, Newspaper, Card (1913), Art Institute Chicago.

For works of art by other Cubists, see Cubist Painters.
For a simple explanation of the movement, see Cubism.

• For other art movements and periods, see: History of Art.
• For styles of painting and sculpture in Ireland, see: Irish Art

• How to Update This Mini Review of Analytical Cubism