Cubism

Can you imagine seeing your favorite teddy bear from all sides at the same time. You could see its fluffy front, its little tail on the back, and its soft ears on the sides, all in one big picture. It would look like a fun puzzle. I help artists do that. I help them break things into little shapes, like squares and triangles and circles. They can show every single part of something all at once. I am a special way to see the world. I am Cubism.

I was born a long, long time ago, around the year 1907. It happened in a big, bright city called Paris. Two good friends who were artists had a wonderful idea. Their names were Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. They looked at a guitar. They didn't want to paint it to look just like a photo. Instead, they wanted to paint how it felt and all the parts you could see if you walked all the way around it. They used lots of straight lines and fun shapes. It was like they were building the guitar with colorful blocks on their canvas. It was a brand new game for painting.

At first, when people saw my pictures, they thought they looked very new and different. The paintings didn't look like things they saw every day. But soon, other artists saw how much fun it was to see things in a new way. I showed everyone that art can be a wonderful adventure and that you don't have to paint things in just one way. Today, I still help people be creative. I remind them to look at the world from different sides and to know there is always more than one way to tell a story with pictures.