Rise of cubism

Rise of cubismhttp://www.archive.org/details/riseofcubismOOkahn
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler : The Rise
Publishers' Note: AUIEDAjjig
The publishers and the director of the series wish to express their
gratitude and indebtedness for aid and advice
to the author, copyright holder of the original edition,
to the individuals and institutions mendoned in the list of illustrations, and
to John Rewald, William S. Lieberman, Curt Valentin, and Bernard Karpel.
This is the first translation into any language of the original German text, written
in 191 5 and published under the title "Der Weg zum Kubismus" by Daniel Henry
(Munich, Delphin-Verlag, 1920).
All rights reserved under international and Pan-American copyright conventions.
Published by Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc., 38 East 57th Street, New York 22, N.Y.
Contents:
via List of Illustrations
ix Writings by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler
I The Rise of Cubism: i. The Essence of the New Painting. Lyricism of Form.
The Conflict between Representation and Structure
3 2. The Forerunners: Cezanne and Derain
5 3. Cubism, the First Stage: The Problem of Form. Picasso
and Braque
9 4. Cubism, the Second Stage: The Piercing of the Closed
Form. The Problem of Color. Categories of Vision.
Picasso and Braque Working Together
17 5. The Picture as a Productive End in Itself. Leger
21 6. New Possibilities: Representation of Movement
P
" if-
:
Cubism began as an analysis, of the nature oj the aesthetic. The present little boo\ is an
account of the cubists' experiments by a man who was their friend and advocate, as well as
a dealer in their wor\s, a man who has reflected on their achievement all his life. Kahn-
weiler formulates their problem in the beginning of this boo\ in the sentence that reads,
'representation and structure conflict.' Written as early as 1915, this boot{ is the story of the
solution that they worked toward; tvhen it came to be seen, it broke the bacl{, if only tem-
porarily, of centuries of naturalistic representation. Since then the struggle to be free from
nature has passed into other hands, and will pass in turn to still others— as long as modern
society remains what it is, and man's insight into it and himself increases, the distance be-
tween the objects in the tvorld and an enlightened mind will lengthen. In accord with its
analytical intent, cubism started inamood of objectivity. From this derives its famous 'purity,'
from its indifference to the demands of the T before an objective problem. This morality
has been inherited by many abstract artists and architects; it is indirect opposition to ex-
pressionism, which asserts the dominance of the T above everything. Part of the beauty in-
herent in the cubist enterprise lies in that for a time their minds were questioning and open
about the forms of painting, though they scarcely transformed at all its subject-matter.
Doubtless they seized upon Cezanne too quickly, but they were eager to act, and he pro-
vided one of the few precedents for a reconsideration of modern painting. They also listened
to poets tvho had been injluenced by Mallarme and the syMlbol^U, notably Guillaume Apol-
linaire; they tal\ed, probably in a purely intuitive tvay, of modern science; and all the time
vi
in their studios they were struggling with the absolutes of painting. But from their free
bohemian life they had already rid their minds of history, middle-class society, religion. Es-
sential steps. Nevertheless the cubists' painting world was filled with objects— nudes, trees,
houses, still life. Sometime in igog or igio Picasso toot{ 'the great ttep ,' as Kahnweiler puts
it, and pierced the 'sl{in' of oibjects . reducing them and the world in which they existed to
what we tvould notv call subjective process. With this step cubism snapped traditional
naturalism. Wording tuith great intelligence, stubbornness and objectivity , they stumbled
over the leading insight of the 20th century,^ all thought and feeling is relative to man, he
does not reflect the tvorld but invents it, Man is his own invention; every artist's problem is
to invent himself. How stupid from this point of view to pass one's time copying nature or
history. And tvhat an invention is Mozart! T't^tgf' nn^lyrlc ^t.// „invl^ nf gr^nt nhj^rtitiity
Bra^ue_and Picasso ivere led directly to the subjective— / am speakjng of the brief period
when their insight did not waver— to the problem of inventing themselves. It is in a much
deeper sense than Manolo guessed luhen he made his crude jo\e that Picasso's family would
not have recognized him at the Barcelona station if he had descended as a cubist portrait.
Cubism invented Picasso as much as he invented cubism fit r.evealed himself to himself, as
painting does to every true painter, of course it made him unintelligible to others\ln loo\ing
bac\ now, one is not certain how completely the cubists possessed their insight. It is shoc\-
ing to read in this boo\ of their fears of being unintelligible, of their confusing the sudden ap-
pearance of their subjectivity with the appearances of the external world, as though one
would lool{ like the other; it is shocking too that they were afraid that the tvork^ might be
merely decorative— a mistaken image Kahnweiler still has of Mondrian and other non-
figurative painters. But we must remember in tvhat a sea of confusions everyone begins,
even genius, and for that matter often ends; everyone's life has to be spent in transcending
his initial inheritances. In the sense that he has been chosen in modern times by the artist as
his special enemy, a middle-class person is one ivho is what he has learned from conventions. •>*'
.
that Kahniveiler and most abstract artists like to speak "/ ^"' a sensitwe c'aUigraphy that/
sweeps up internal and externalworlds into a oneness in which reality consists not oj_of-
posing_ejs£iices_ojjnafter_ and spirit, representation and ^tructttrcr but- tyf relation f, jprocess.
During these years cubism approached ecstasy. Presently it lost its intuition of the mysterious,
and they returned to Western construction , like carpenters or masons. Corot, Courbet and the
impressionists made the subject-matter of modern art secular. The cubists accepted from
them landscape and still life, and from the academic tradition the nude. These subjects the
cubists mildly transformed into their oivn intimate objects, bare rooms in place of the out-
doors, glasses, playing cards, labels, newspapers, musical instruments in place of fruit, and,
one supposes, their own girls in place of the model in a public studio. But the intrinsic con-_
flict betiveen subjettivity andthe objectjjolthe tiiprld, bettveen structure and representation,
as Kahnweiler puts it, led them slowly to abandon natural appearances as much as they
could in the interes^ts~-&f axt; this process constituted their dramatic conflict, which they
resolved long enough to liberate everyone after them, and then abandoned , for they re-
fttsed to give up their studio subjects. Tender and lyricaL . perhaps for the moment unable
to stand expressionist distortion, the cubists came to invent a new. sign language with which
to refer to their familiar objects in the studio, signs tvhose meaning was arbitrary, invented
vii
and by definition, lil{e other symbolic structures: words or relational logic or the language
of deaf-mutes. Cubism was filled u'ith the optimistic desire to be modern that Apollinaire
expressed; but when cubism returned later to its pleasure-giving objects, it became filled with
nostalgia, with a sense of their certain decay. When the cubists painted still life they may
have intended, as one says in French, nature morte. . . . / say these things as all of us artists
lit^e to speal(^, not as history, but as evocative of what I have seen and guessed; nothing of
interest can be spol^en of save by indirection. This was just cubism's insight. For several
years the cubists painted as if no truth is true that is not subtle.
Robert Motherwell, New Yor\, February 22, ig^g
List of Illustrations
(Dimensions given in inches, height precedes width)
Frontispiece Picasso, Portrait of Kahnweiler. 1910, oil, 39'/4 by 28%, collection Mrs.
Charles B. Goodspeed, Chicago.
Pagejri Picasso, Etching. 1914.
2 Picasso, Nude. 1910, pen and ink drawing, coll. unknown.
20 Picasso, Two Nudes. 1906, oil, 59% by 36%, private collection, London.
23 Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. 1907, oil, 96 by 92, Museum of Modern
Art, New York, acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest.
24 Braque, Nude. 1908, oil, 55% by 40, coUectien Mme Marie Cuttoli, Paris.
24 Picasso, Two Nudes {Friendship). 1908, oil, 60 by 40, Museum of Modern Western Art, Moscow.
25 Picasso, Oil-Mill, Horta. 1909, oil, 15 by 18, private collection, Paris.
25 Braque, Road near Estaque. 1908, oil, 23% by 19%, Museum of Modern Art,
New York.
26 Picasso, Woman with Mandolin. 1909, oil, 25 by 21, Museum of Modern Western Art, Moscow.
26 Picasso, Woman with Mandolin (Fanny Tellier). 1910, oil, 39'/2 by 29, col-
lection Roland Penrose, London.
27 Braque, Woman tvith Mandolin. 1910-11, oil, 36 by 28'/2, collection Walter
P. Chrysler, Jr., Warrentown, Virginia.
28 Braque, The Portuguese Guitar Player. 1911, oil, 46V4 by 28%, private col-
lection, Paris.
29 Picasso, Guitar. 1912, construction in colored papers, 9'/2 inches high, owned by the artist.
30 Braque, The Clarinet. 1913, pasted paper, facsimile wood grain and crayon
drawing, 37 by 47, collection Amedee Ozenfant, New York.
30 Picasso, Man tvith a Violin. 1913, pasted paper and charcoal drawing, 48% by i8'/8, collection Roland Penrose, London.
vtii
30 Braque, The Concert. 1913, pasted paper, facsimile wood grain and charcoal
drawing, 36 by 46 '/2, collection Pablo Picasso, Paris.
31 Picasso, Glass, Pipe, Playing Card. 1914, painted construction in wood, I'iVi
inches diameter, owned by the artist.
32 Picasso, Still Life. 1912-13, oil and pasted paper on canvas, 36'/4 by 25V2) col-
lection Walter C. Arensberg, Hollywood.
32 Braque, Oval Still Life. 1914, oil, 36% by 25%, Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of the Advisory Committee.
33 Leger, Two Pipe Smokers. 191 1, oil, 51 by 38, former collection Georges
Bernheim, Paris.
33 Leger, Nudes in the Forest. 1909-10, oil, 96 by 132, collection KroUer-Miiller
Foundation, Otterloo, Holland.
34 Leger, Smoke over Roofs. 1913, gouache, 25'/4 by igVi, Buchholz Gallery,
New York.
Writings by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler
Compiled by Bernard Karpet, Librarian, Museum of Modern Art, New Yor\
1. Der Kubismus. Die Weissen Blatter (Zurich-Leipzig) v.3, no.9, p.209-222 Sept. 1916.
2. Die Schweizer Volksmalerei im XIX. Jahrhundert. Das Kunstblatt {Berlin) v. 2, no.7,
p.223-225 July 1918.
3. Vom Sehen und vom Bilden. Die Weissen Blatter (Zurich-Leipzig) v.6, no.7, P-3^5~322
July 1919.
4. Andre Derain. Das Kunstblatt (Berlin) v.3, no.io, p.289-304 Oct. 1919.
5. Expressionismus. Das Kunstblatt (Berlin) v.3, no.ii, p.351 Nov. 1919.
6. Merzmalerei. Das Kunstblatt (Berlin) v.3, no. 11, p.351 Nov. 1919.
7. Das Wesen der Bildhauerei. Feuer (Weimar) v.i, no.2-3, p. 145-156 Nov.-Dec. 1919.
8. Der Weg zum Kubismus. 55p. plus 36 plates Miinchen, Delphin-Verlag, 1920.
Issued in translation as: The rise of cubism, Neu> Yorl{, i()4g.
9. Maurice de Vlaminck. i6p. plus 32 plates Leipzig, Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1920.
( Junge Kunst. Bd. 1 1 )
.
10. Andre Derain. i6p. plus 32 plates Leipzig, Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1920. (Junge Kunst.
Bd.15).
Also published in Dutch translation by Collection N.K., .imsterdam, 1924. Originally
issued in Das Kun'stblatt v.^, igig, and in Jahrbuch der Jungen Kunst v.i, P.9S-95
jg20.
11. \\fcT\isiaXX.en. Die Freude (Oberfran^en) v.i, p.153-154 1920.
12. Absichten des Kubismus. Das Kunstblatt (Berlin) v.4, no.2, p.6i Feb. 1920.
13. Die Grenzen der Kunstgeschichte. Monatshefte fiir Kunstwissenschaft (Leipzig) v. 13,
part I, p.91-97 Apr. 1920.
14. Andre Derain. Der Cicerone (Leipzig) v.12, no. 8, p-3i5-3i7 Apr. 1920.
ix
15. Der Purismus. Der Cicerone {Leipzig) v. 12, no.p, p.364 May 1920.
Also published in Jahrbuch der Jungen Kunst, v.i, p.i^<) 1^20.
16. Fernand Leger. Der Cicerone (Leipzig) v. 12, no.19, p.699-702 Oct. 1920.
Also published in Jahrbuch der Jungen Kunst, p.^oi—^o^ 1^20.
i6a. Ingres: Ideen und Maximen. Das Kunstblatt v.9, no.i, p.18-24 Jan. 1925.
"Zusammengestellt von Daniel Henry."
1 6b. Maurice de Vlaminck. In Flechtheim, Alfred, Gallery. Maurice de Vlaminck, mit Bei-
tragen von Daniel Henry, E. Teriade, und Gedichten des Malers, p.5-6 Berlin, Werk-
kunst Verlag, 1926 (Veroffendichungen des Kunstarchivs. Nr.20.)
Text dated igig, exhibition held Nov. 1^26.
17. Der Tod des Juan Oris. Der Ouerschnitt {Berlin) v.7, no.7, p.558 July 1927.
17a. Das abenteuerliche Leben des Manuel Martinez Hugue, genannt Manolo. In Flechtheim,
Alfred, Gallery. Manolo. p.3-8 Berlin, 1929.
Also published in Der Ouer'schnitt v.g, no.8, p.590-^gi ic)2g.
18. Juan Gris. i6p. plus 32 plates Leipzig, Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1929. (Junge Kunst
Bd.55). . . . ,
iSa.Elie Lascaux. In Flechtheim, Alfred, Gallery. Elie Lascaux [exhibition catalog] p.8 Ber-
lin, Diisseldorf, 1930.
19. Juan Gris. In Ziirich. Kunsthaus. Juan Gris-Fernand Leger. p.24-27 Paris, Cahiers
d'Art, 1933.
Special edition issued for exhibitions of April and May.
20. Introduction. In Buchholz Gallery, New York. Andre Masson [exhibition catalog] 1942.
Translated by Maria Jolas. Also published in Volontes {Paris) Nov. j, 79^5.
21. La naissance du cubisme. Les Temps Modernes {Paris) v.i, no.4, p.625-639, Jan. 1946.
22. The state of painting in Paris, 1945 assessment. Horizon {London) v. 12, no.71, p.333-
341, Nov. 1945.
23. Elie Lascaux. Centres {Limoges) no.3 Feb. 1946.
24. Faut-il ecrire une histoire du gout? Critique {Paris) no.5, p.423-429, Oct. 1946.
25. Eugene de Kermadec. La Revue Internationale {Paris) v.2, no. 11, p.397-403, Dec. 1946.
26. Juan Gris: sa vie, son oeuvre, ses ecrits. 344p. plus 51 plates Paris, Gallimard, 1946.
hsued in revised edition, English text. New Yor\ 1947.
27. Juan Gris, his life and work. i77p. plus 113 plates New York, Curt Valentin, 1947.
A translation and revision, by Douglas Cooper, of French edition {1946).
28. A propos d'une conference de Paul Klee. Les Temps Modernes (Paris) v.2, no.i6, p.758-
764, Jan. 1947.
29. La place de Georges Seurat. Critique (Paris) v.2, no.8-9, p.54-59, Jan.-Feb. 1947.
30. Andre Masson illustrateur. In Skira, Albert (Publisher). Vingt ans d'activite. p.20
[Geneve, 1948].
31. L'Art negre et le cubisme. Presence Africaine (Paris-Da\ar) no.3 ^9A'^-
Also published in Horizon (London), 1948.
32. Negro art and cubism. Horizon (London) v. 18, no. 108, p.412-420, Dec. 1948.
33. Juan Gris In San Francisco. Museum of Art. Picasso, Gris, Miro: the Spanish masters of
twentieth century painting, p.67-73 San Francisco, The Museum, 1948.
34. Mallarme et la peinture. Les Lettres v.3, part 3, special number, 1948.
35- Le veritable Bearnais. Artes (Antwerp) no. r 1948.
'36. Ursprung und Entwicklung des Kubismus. In Jardot, Maurice & Martin, Kurt. Die Mei-
ster franzosischer Malerei der Gegenwart. Baden-Baden, Woldemar Klein, 1948.
37. Preface. In Brussels. Palais des Beaux-Arts. Henri Laurens [exhibition catalog] Mar.
1949.
38. Preface. In Malraux, Andre. Les Conquerants, illustre par Andre Masson. Geneve, Al-
bert Skira, 1949.
39. Les Sculptures de Picasso. 216 photographies de Brassai. Paris, Editions du Chene, 1949.
40. The Rise of Cubism. New York, Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc., 1949. (Documents of modern
art, edited by Robert Motherwell.)
Translation by Henry Aronson of: Der Weg zum Kubismus (1920).
XI
Chapter : i
Impressionism rejuvenated painting ; it brightened the palette and broke with
old superfluous laws. Its goal, however, was too limited to suffice for more than
one generation. With it, illusionism appeared as one last burst of color pyro-
technics, sputtered and extinguished itself.
The period following Impressionism must be described as lyric, not lyric in
the literary sense of mood, but lyric in the painterly sense of form. The purpose
of recording history, which painting had fulfilled before Masaccio in a narrative
fashion and after him in a dramatic fashion, had vanished.
And for that reason painting in our time has become lyric, its stimulus the
pure intense delight in the beauty of things. Lyric painting celebrates this beauty
without epic or dramatic overtones. It strives to capture this beauty in the unity
of the work of art. The nature of the new painting is clearly characterized as
representational as well as structural: representational in that it tries to repro-
duce the formal beauty of things ; structural in its attempt to grasp the meaning
of this formal beauty in the painting.
Representation and structure conflict. Their reconciliation by the new paint-
ing, and the stages along the road to this goal, are the subject of this work.
Chapter : 2
At the beginning of the road two attempts may be distinguished. The first
collapsed with the death of its originator, the highly gifted Georges Seurat. It
was destined to collapse. Seurat's solution was not new; it resembled Egyptian
painting in its effort to translate depth into plane relations. Lyricism of form
could never have been realized in this way, and so the expression of the artistic
intention of the time was not achieved.
The second attempt was that of Paul Cezanne, the point of departure for all
painting of today. His art was lyric. In it there was no longer any motivation
other than delight in form. He struggled with the object, trying to capture it in
all its beauty and carry it into his painting. Where his friends the Impressionists
saw only light, he used light to shape the three dimensional object.
To understand Cezanne's limitations one must remember the time in which
he lived. His friends were the plein air painters, worshippers of light. To be sure,
he regarded the object, not light, as the essential, but he was too much of
his time to have been able to renounce the concept of light falling from a single
source. On the other hand, he disregarded the color of the object and concen-
trated on its form.
Therefore, his renunciation of illusionism was only partial. Cezanne's tech-
nique is as follows: perspective is mostly conceived as if the spectator stands
higher than the objects in the painting. This allows a more penetrating delinea-
tion of their forms without, however, destroying their fidelity to nature. As we
have already seen, light is used as a means of representing objects, but without
falling from several sides. The color is objectivated light on the object. It clings,
here too in the spirit of the time, to harmonies : a yellow gray tone in his maturity,
a red brown tone in his later years. The artist's constant preoccupation is with
the structure of the work; in the structure he distorts the object, just as in the
color harmony he discolors it.
.
nents of his art, failing to understand the conflict in the soul of this artist who
was so in advance of his time, tried often enough to turn these utterances against
him, but closer observation will reveal that distortion of form had to occur in his
work. Art since Masaccio had no such distortion to fear since it had thrown
structure entirely overboard. It accepted transformation of color through color
harmonies calmly, as Cezanne also did. However, as soon as a lyric art sought to
extoU the form of objects and, simultaneously, to comprehend them within the
unity of the work of art, distortion of the object became necessary, although
unpleasant, since it was a betrayal of just that beauty which was to be extolled.
Cezanne's great contribution which has made him the father of the entire
liew art lies precisely in his return to structure. Here Cezanne took that great step
beyond the painter who must be regarded as his predecessor : Corot. Not Cprot,
the virtuoso of sunsets, but the master of the Pont de Mantes and figure paint-
ings. Corot had already made persistent attempts to grasp the three dimensional
object, but had not sought structure. Therefore, one finds no distortion in his
work.
In what respect Cezanne's great follower Andre Derain goes beyond him is
easy to see ; Derain also felt transformation of color to be…