Discuss the development of Analytic and Synthetic Cubism using Georges Braque's Violin and Palette and Pablo Picasso's La Bouteille de Suze as examples.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The ideal answer should include:
1. In Braque's Violin and Palette, the still-life items are fragmented and compressed into the shallow space of the picture plane to create an abstract composition of shifting forms and colors.
2. Braque's painting exemplifies Analytic Cubism because the process mimics the process of perception; however, by examining objects from various points of view and then reassembling them into a whole object in our brain, this process communicates meaning rather than observed reality.
3. Picasso's La Bouteille de Suze represents the second major phase of Cubism known as Synthetic Cubism because Picasso created a motif by combining simpler elements, as in a chemical synthesis.
4. The collage creates a tray or round table that supports a glass and a bottle of liquor from pieces of newsprint and construction paper, and, as in earlier Cubism, multiple perspectives are offered: we see the top of the blue table and simultaneously the side of the glass, the side of the bottle and the round profile of its opening and the cork that plugs it.