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Cubism The appearance of Fauve art had surprised and shocked the Paris art world in 1905. Two years later even the Fauve artists themselves were startled by the experiments begun by Pablo Picasso. Picasso, a Spaniard, had come to Paris to practice his art. He had won initial success with bluish, melancholy paintings. Then in 1907 he tried something completely different. Influenced by the art of African sculpture, he began to look at the human figure as …

…ideas. Following his inspiration, Cubist artists presented an exciting number of approaches to painting. Yet their art can be summed up in a general way. They were most interested in reshaping their subjects. They were less interested in expressing the feelings or messages of their subjects. Though there were exceptions, such as in the later paintings of Picasso, this held true for pure Cubism. Cubists took their own road in the development of twentieth-century art.