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Cubism has been one of the most influential art movements in the last several hundred years. Not only was it capable of influencing art on canvas, it was capable of influencing literature and music to change during this time period as well.

Essentially cubism is a type of art that was created in Europe sometime during the 20th century. During this movement, significant changes were made to the way in which artists painted and sculpted.

With cubism, artists are essentially working with depth and angles. By taking a 3 dimensional square and drawing it out, it would be just a square, nothing special, but if the artist were to change one of the walls of the square to have a different length or angle, suddenly this square is considerably different. Cubism takes advantage of these differences on a much greater level, toying with the notions that are generally accepted in geometric shapes. This is how the sense of depth and falling was created into paintings and allowed for a great deal of versatility for artists who wanted something that was different than the standard method of creating art. This gave a much greater degree of artistry to the standard abstract painting as well.

Cubism is actually broke up into two categories of art:

SYNTHETIC CUBISM
This is the form of cubism that use a great deal of colors, many would take advantage of color

ANALYTICAL CUBISM
This form of cubism was actually created by Georges Braque and used a great deal of darker colors.

Cubism was essentially created by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, two of the most famous artists of all time. While no one is completely certain at the real person that created this form of art, these are the two that are most credited with creating the movement and keeping it going. However, Braque and Picasso never actually used the term cubism when describing this form of art. This was actually coined in 1908 by a then famous art critic, by the name of Louis Vauxcelles.

Cubism began to spread around the world before too long, and eventually found itself in the United States and eventually the Czech Republic which used cubism heavily in a great deal of their architecture of the time. If you go to the Czech Republic today, you would be able to see several great examples of architectural cubism.

Now cubism is recognized as one of the most popular art forms. I myself own several pieces of cubism art, which I have placed in various locations around my house. The main thing to remember is that because it is an abstract form of art, you have to keep in mind that there isn't always a meaning to the painting.

Learn more about this author, Clacky McSnackins.
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