Art, Hockney and Picasso

Relativity became everything," (MDC).
             Cubism became a response to the events, the time, and the space. Cubism became the medium for artists to capture the dynamic fluidity of space and time on a two dimensional surface. Unlike traditional works of art, cubism relies on truth, and reality – that being we perceive multiples planes of vision over a course of time and throughout space. Earlier works will normally attempt to capture a snapshot of a moment, following depth and structure cues like linear perspective. These attempts were made so that fractions of time could be capturedand then visualized on the surface of a canvas. Cubism was unlike this entirely. Cubism wanted to depict the more natural world of the moving eye and human being. This form of art recognized that the natural world was not conceptualized through snapshots of visualizations but rather a constant flux of dimensions in space. Thus we begin to see this taking shape in the works of Picasso and Braque. .
             Let us examine the painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, created by Pablo Picasso. This work of art illustrates multi-perspective elements. While looking at the body positions you'll notice the figure on the right and near the front has a body position that contradicts itself: the body facing the background, its head facing the viewer. The juxtaposition of body parts is playing on the important elements of cubism: the head turned indicating a passage of time, and the theory of relativity. A face will always be a face; it's just coming from a different perspective. Here Picasso is illuminating the nature of relativity and the human perception. .
             Furthermore, the grapes on the table suggest another line of vision – the painting depicts a downward glance at the table while the women in the background suggest a direct horizontal perspective of the image. Over and over again, you will find that Picasso has had the "figures and objects dissected or 'analyzed' into a multitude of small facets, these were then reassembled, after a fashion, to evoke those same figures or objects," (Gersh-Nesic).