Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was a Spanish painter that spent most of his time in France and is credited with co-founding the technique of cubism. He would often meet and compare work with Georges Braque (1882-1963) who was the other founder of the form.
Pablo Picasso
Georges Braque
Picasso performed what is now called analytic cubism when orchestrating his Accordionist (1911) painting. When first viewing the painting, the viewer immediately is bombarded with an abstract scene. One could not even tell what the focal point is without having a little background on cubism and of course by taking into account the title of the piece. Analytical cubism is a discipline of study and form that entails close attention to cumulative forces of movement and time. What Picasso is doing here is painting the accordionist's movement and time with different angles. It is basically bringing a fourth dimension to the canvas. At first I personally thought that perhaps the critiques dubbed this style "cubism" because the artist would paint geometric shapes individually at different times. However, this is not the case. Apparently this style was so new and abstract the critiques just settled on calling it cubism.
In relation to this piece and Braque's cubist painting The Portuguese (1911) I am reminded of modern bands using abstract works of art as there album cover. To play with the words we'll focus on the band Portugal. The Man. This is a very unique band from Alaska that play psychedelic rock. The music is good but is almost a guarantee to be a new noise to an unfamiliar listener's ear. Their album covers such as the one below even has what appears to be cubism displayed in the background. Perhaps their music parallels with cubism for it does seem to be abstract and open to individual interpretation.
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