Cubism, perhaps the seminal movement for the arts of the twentieth century, was also one of the most complex. David Cottington describes how the artistic avant-garde, and Cubism within it, were formed by the turbulent times before the outbreak of the First World War. Analysing paintings by Picasso, Braque, and Robert and Sonia Delaunay, the author traces their exploration of the conventions of pictorial representation in the interests both of reflection on the experience of modernity, and of critical resistance to its seductions.
