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04 The Cubist Laboratory

In the autumn of 1906, the influence of several new sources of inspiration—Iberian art, Romanesque sculpture, and non-Western art, chiefly African and Oceanic—led to a key change of direction in Picasso’s work. The fruit of a close collaboration with Georges Braque, Cubism developed in several artistic fields: primarily in painting, but also in sculpture and ★papiers collés★, the three practices all exerting a mutual influence on each other.
Although the first proto-Cubist works were focused on the representation of nature and landscape, Cubist artists quickly turned their attention to everyday subjects. Occasionally, Cubist representations of architectural elements were attempted, as in Picasso’s ★The Sacré-Cœur★(no. 8), which depicts the basilica as it was rising on Montmartre. The first years of the Cubist movement, from 1909 to 1911, which art historians dubbed ‘Analytical Cubism’, were also marked by the use of a limited colour palette, consisting of shades of grey and beige.