Cubism is often described as the most influential style of the first half of the 20th century. This class will follow the birth of cubism at the hands of the “gallery cubists,” George Braque and Pablo Picasso, and the development of this new style as a challenge to past artistic conventions. We will examine the quick dissemination of the style by different artistic groups, such as the “salon cubists,” also known as Puteaux cubists, futurism, orphism etc. These groups freely interpreted Picasso’s and Braque’s inventions and utilized the cubist language to convey a wide range of ideas from responding to new scientific discoveries, representing the modern world, or expressing national sentiments. We will concentrate on concepts of fragmentation and the invention of collage, and see how figurative painting paved the way to abstraction and multi-sensual events.