The Impressionists dissolved forms. They painted blurry “impressions” of objects modified by changing light and atmospheric conditions—drifts of fog, shimmering forest shadows, the glow of gas lamps on rainy streets. Cubists cracked the mirror of art. In their paintings objects open into surrounding space and none has an uninterrupted outline. Parts are broken off, colors bleed into neighboring objects, and translucent facets of space with multiple light sources cut shadows across bounding surfaces. They removed sections of faces and reassembled what remained to create grotesque open forms in defiance of natural appearance.
ATTRIBUTION:
Stephen Kern, U.S. educator, critic. The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918, ch. 7, Harvard University Press (1983).
