Works by French artists such as Georges Braque (1882-1963) illustrated the modern view of a dissolution of the boundaries between time and space, as reflected in the artist’s deliberate distortion of perspective.

Georges Braque, Still Life of Violin and Harp

In contrast to classical forms dominated by horizontals and verticals, containing objects with sharp outlines and firmly grounded in space, Impressionists like Vincent Van Gogh dissolved forms, painting blurry “impressions” of objects modified by changing light and atmospheric conditions.

Vincent Van Gogh, Irisis

The Cubist assault on the closed form was the most graphic and significant of this period.  It involved a transformation of the very purpose of art from the interpretation of optically received reality to the creation of an aesthetically conceived one.

The Cubists discovered that they could, and must, deform objects in deference to artistic sensibilities alone.  For them, the breakdown of the closed form was a declaration of independence of art over visual appearance—a repudiation of older conventions that separated subject and background, as well as those who insisted the artist defer to the appearance of objects in reality.  In short, they discarded objective reality, proclaiming the autonomy of the artist.

Cubists cracked the mirror of art.  In their paintings objects opened into surrounding space, and none had an uninterrupted outline.  Parts were broken off, colors bled into neighboring objects and translucent facets of space with multiple light sources cut shadows across bounding surfaces.  They removed sections of faces and reassembled what remained to create grotesque open forms in defiance of natural appearance.

n Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon , the five bodies are from left to right less sharply contoured, as though the artist were giving a step-by-step demonstration of how to dismantle the closed human form.

Postimpressionism was interpreted as a threat to wholesome American values, a “harbinger of universal anarchy”—a “denial of all law” and an “insurrection against all custom and tradition.”  The link between politics and art was thus viewed by some as a sign of the disintegration of culture and custom, even as others heralded it as a victory of internationalism.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Black Spot No. 1

The radicalism of art exhibited at the Armory Show accurately reflected the radical political ideals of Socialists such as Emma Goldman, whose views of revolution were in accord with the simultaneous revolution taking place in the art world.  Just as the artists depicted a dissolution between conventional boundaries of time and space, Goldman and fellow radicals advocated an end to capitalism and the concomitant dissolution of boundaries between capital and labor, men, women, and nations.

Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was a major figure in the history of American radicalism and feminism.