Pablo Picasso, Three Musicians
Pablo Picasso, “Three Musicians”, 1921




Pablo Picasso, Girl With Mandonlin, 1910
Pablo Picasso, “Girl With Mandolin”, 1910

African art and the modern, urban street life of Paris greatly influenced Picasso’s conception of Cubism. In addition, Picasso became fascinated with the process of construction and deconstruction, a fascination that is evident in his Cubist works.


Fernand Léger, “Three Women” 1921-22
Fernand Léger, “Three Women” 1921-22

Picasso actively created works of Cubist art for around ten years. Within this time span, his Cubist style subtly evolved from Analytical Cubism (1907-1912) to Synthetic Cubism (1913-1917). With Analytical Cubism, Picasso utilized a muted color palette of monochromatic browns, grays, and blacks and chose to convey relatively unemotional subject matters such as still lifes and landscapes. He placed an emphasis on open figuration and abstraction, but did not yet incorporate elements of texture and collage.

With Synthetic Cubism, Picasso incorporated texture, patterning, text, and newspaper scraps into his Cubist works.  While he still portrayed relatively neutral subjects such as musical instruments, bottles, glasses, pitchers, newspapers, playing cards, and human faces and figures, his technique had progressed to the point where he was consistently including elements of collage, a technique that his is often credited with inventing. With Synthetic Cubism, Picasso redefined the visual effect of his original Cubist technique and incorporated new materials, paving the way for the artistic avant-garde movement to ignite throughout Europe. Cubism is renowned as a groundbreaking artistic movement in and of its own right, yet it also influenced generations of artists to follow, shaping the very history of art.

Pablo Picasso, “Jacqueline at the Easel, 1956”. Color Lithograph with Pochoir.


Pablo Picasso, Still Life with a Bottle of Rum', 1965


  • Museum of Modern Art(2014). Cubism.
  • Miami Dade College (2014). Cubism: A New Vision.
  • Rewald, S. (2000). Cubism.