Cubism, invented by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, would not have been possible without the innovations of Cézanne, and much of twentieth century modernist painting would not have been possible without Cubism. To understand a Cubist painting, and what I will call “the Cubist project,” requires us to chart Picasso and Braque’s innovations from 1906 to 1914. In so doing, we will not only see how their objectives are manifest in specific paintings, but also see that neither sought to completely give up representing things from the material world, even as those objects seemingly appear fractured nearly beyond recognition.
Cubism – The ArtStory (link) General overview.
Analytic Cubism – The ArtStory (link) The first phase of Cubism.
Synthetic Cubism – The ArtStory (link) – The second phase of Cubism.
Key Issues: Perspective, Viewpoint and Cubism – Tate Museum (link) Useful discussion of Cubism’s representation of human vision.
This article is rather dense, but is perhaps the best explanation of Cubism I have read. The only downside is that the article is not as illustrated as it ideally should be. So, if choose to read it, I advise first skimming through the text to find as a many of the works of art mentioned, and then reference back to them as you read more carefully.
Excerpt from Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, The Way of Cubism, 1920 (pdf)
Picasso and Braque’s dealer was Daniel Kahnweiler, who bankrolled their project. He subsequently wrote a very good account of Cubism, which is excerpted.
For a fuller account: Kahnweiler on Cubism, 1949 (link)
This text might be a bit dense, and without knowing the works, difficult to understand. But a good selection of Cubist paintings can be seen with a google image search.
Cubism-PAWC