Art & Design
Cubism Art Movement Quiz
Picasso, Braque, and shattered perspectives — how well do you know Cubism?
Picasso, Braque, and shattered perspectives — how well do you know Cubism?
Braque once described his partnership with Picasso as being like "two mountaineers roped together" — and together they shattered over 500 years of linear perspective in Western art. Between 1907 and 1914 in Paris, Cubism transformed how artists and viewers thought about space, form, and representation. This quiz covers 50 questions about the movement's origins, key works, and lasting influence.
Cubism was pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris beginning around 1907. Picasso's groundbreaking painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) is often cited as the proto-Cubist work that launched the movement. The two artists worked so closely together between 1908 and 1914 that their paintings from this period are sometimes difficult to tell apart.
Analytic Cubism (circa 1908-1912) is the first phase of Cubism, characterized by the fragmentation of objects into geometric facets viewed from multiple angles simultaneously. The palette was deliberately restricted to monochromatic browns, grays, and ochres so that color wouldn't distract from the exploration of form. Key works include Braque's Violin and Candlestick and Picasso's Portrait of Ambroise Vollard.
Collage emerged during the Synthetic Cubism phase (1912-1919) when artists began incorporating real-world materials into their compositions. Picasso's Still Life with Chair Caning (May 1912) is considered the first collage, featuring oil cloth printed with a chair-caning pattern. Braque followed with the first papier colle in September 1912, gluing wallpaper printed with a wood-grain pattern into Fruit Dish and Glass.