Crystal Cubism

also: Cubisme cristal · Cubisme de cristal · Crystal Period · classical Cubism

style c. 1915-1920 France Europe

Crystal Cubism is the name the poet and critic Maurice Raynal gave to the hard, orderly Cubism that emerged in Paris during the First World War, above all among artists contracted to the dealer Léonce Rosenberg and his Galerie de L'Effort Moderne. Where pre-war Cubism had toyed with the fourth dimension, Bergson's duration, and the dynamism of modern life, the war years stripped all of that away: from a shift around 1915-1916, compositions tightened into grids of flat, overlapping geometric planes, color became frank and unmodulated, and depth collapsed to that of a bas-relief. Especially significant between 1917 and 1920, the style answered the chaos of war with clarity, measure, and the return to order - a purifying of Cubism into its 'crystal' phase.

Woman with Black Glove
Woman with Black GlovePublic domain (credit: Albert Gleizes) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Large, flat, overlapping geometric planes that knit the picture into shallow, bas-relief space
  • Tightened, grid-ordered compositions conveying clarity, measure, and calm
  • Frank, simplified color; chiaroscuro and painterly nuance deliberately abandoned
  • Subjects distilled to essential signs, with detail and ornament stripped away
  • The painting treated as a self-sufficient built object rather than a window on the world

Key figures

  • Juan Gris (1887-1927) — The 'fiercest of the purists', whose late still lifes set the standard for crystal clarity
  • Albert Gleizes (1881-1953) — Theorist-painter who pushed Cubist synthesis furthest and codified its laws in Painting and its Laws
  • Jean Metzinger (1883-1956) — Co-author of Du "Cubisme" who distilled his compositions from 1915 into measured geometric armatures
  • Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973) — Sculptor of the Rosenberg circle whose work tightened alongside the painters from 1916

Example works

Sources

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