Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque worked side by side, experimenting with broken up objects and reassembled in abstract form. The main goal of cubism was to step away from the typical knowledge of perspective. Their early works from this style uses bright color palettes, hard edged forms, and flattened space.9 Impressionism and post-impressionism art movements began to evolve into flatter forms. Contrast to the post-impressionists, who looked to Japanese art, Picasso and Braque looked to African art.² Picasso and Braque were more radical in their approach. Cubism is based more on the experiment with structure rather than the expression of emotion that was evident in the other movements that were existing along side of cubism.9

        In 1907, Picasso's painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is considered one of the great milestones of modern painting and marked the beginning of cubism. The fragmentation of figures and fractured planes in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is why this painting is sometimes referred to as the first Cubist painting.² The argument of whether this marked the beginning of Cubist painting is perhaps because the painting defies categories and was intended to do so.² It was considered a vulgar and monstrous painting that Picasso did not really know what to do with it. He could not decide if it was finished or what really was considered a finished picture. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon resulted from his encounter with African sculpture and Henri Matisse's Blue Nude, that had shown the innovations of Paul Cézanne. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon initiates a general shift away from narrative subjects in Picasso's paintings during his Cubist years.¹ However, elements of narrative still remain in it. The face of the woman seated at the lower right side, stares back at us with intensity. Her pose recalls similar figures in Cézanne's Bather painting.²

        After a few months from Georges Braque viewing Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, he began his own interpretation in Large Nude, which was based on Picasso's style and figures. By the Spring of 1908, Braque was already following Picasso's work intently, which was moving toward fragmentation. At the 1908 Salon D' Automne, Braque sent some of his landscape paintings to be viewed. From there, the French art critic, Louis Vauxcelles described his work using the term "cubism." Vauxcelles said, "Braque scorns form and reduces everything, sites, figures and houses, to geometric schemas and cubes.8"

        Cubism is broken down into three phases in the development of this art movement. The first phase is called facet cubism because of the different planes and facets. The second phase, analytic cubism, analyzed natural forms and reduced the forms into basic geometric parts. The physical reality of subjects were less depicted and the sense of different view points emerged. Colors were reduced to monochromatic earth tones to enhance the focus of the structures. The last phase is synthetic cubism, which introduced collaged objects into their paintings. By incorporating real, found objects onto their canvas, Picasso and Braque opened up a new meaning of art.

        The first World War ended the collaboration between Picasso and Braque, but the cubist group that followed their style, remained  active until the 1920s. Today, the geometric and abstract forms are contributed to the pioneering break through of Cézanne, Picasso and Braque.8