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Is Cubist art abstract or realist? I suspect most would say that it is abstract, although not wholly, and certainly not realist. This judgment may be determined in part by the dominance of theory and by Modernist theory in particular. Early Cubist theory saw Cubism as realist; the dominance of Modernist theory has obscured this. I shall argue that the application of Modernist theory to Cubism yields an inadequate interpretation of Cubism in its original, historical setting. To be more precise my argument will be less general than I have indicated as its central contentions bear only on the Analytic Cubism of Braque and Picasso. My positive argument, as it concerns the Analytic Cubism of Braque and Picasso in its origins, will be for a realist Cubism. However, this argument will not be that of early Cubist theories nor that of Hintikka in his more recent essay.¹ Despite what I have said, my object is not to arrive at the definitive interpretation of some aspects of Cubism. Looking at paintings is as open an activity as making paintings has come to be. What I have to recommend is a possible way of looking at some Cubist paintings and one which, it is plausible to maintain, Braque and Picasso invented in making the paintings of Analytic Cubism. The suggestion that these works are realist paintings is not meant in any technical sense that would imply more than grammatical differences between the words "realist" and "realism". "Realist", in this context, contrasts with the paintings being formal arrangements (the latter being the main meaning of "abstract" in this essay) and implies representations of particular things or experiences as they sometimes are, and not as they might be imagined (fantastically). What is interesting in this whole project is both the critique of Modernism and the exploration of the way in which philosophical ideas can be of assistance in the act of perceiving paintings.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-3847-2_4

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