This is to be observed in Braque's Table (Still Life with Fan) (1910), in which the form of a bottle is represented by a composite image from multiple viewpoints. The vertical form is surmounted by an ellipse, a traditional Western device for depicting a cylindrical object. With regards to verisimilitude, however, the ellipse would only be visible at the cylindrical base, rather than at the rounded top. Furthermore, the far edge of the ellipse is flattened into a horizontal line, suggesting that the bottle is actually viewed at eye-level, calling for a two-dimensional image. These multiple viewpoints conflict with each other, but they nevertheless give a sense of the contour and volume of the object without resorting to illusionistic conventions. This principle is even more clearly discernible in Juan Gris' Three Cards (1913), in which several views of a guitar are emphasised by their different colouring.
This aspect of Cubism is usually attributed to Braque and Picasso's contact with the art of Cézanne, and indeed it would be wrong to underestimate his influence (this is evident from their 1908 landscapes of L'Estaque.) It is Cézanne, not the Cubists, who pioneered multiple viewpoints in the West, and it is doubtful that he had any knowledge of primitive art when he did so. Although Cézanne is the ultimate source, a comparison of his works with those of the Cubists reveals a profound disparity with regards to their use of the technique. Cubism uses it in a much more overt way than Cézanne, and I would argue that this exaggeration is informed by archaic art forms, specifically those of Egypt. Ancient Egyptian art is of course typified by its method of representing objects from their most characteristic angles. A human face, for example, would be depicted in profile so as to display the nose in its most apprehensible form. For the same reason, the eye would be presented frontally.
Evidence for Picasso's familiarity with, and enthusiasm for this technique can be found in the left-hand demoiselle, where both profile nose and frontal eye are depicted. This produces a composite image that is still read as a face, but which bears little resemblance to a face as it is realistically perceived. Fidelity to visual perception had been a concern of Western artists since the Renaissance. Instead, Egyptian and Cubist works share a conceptual apprehension of the face. The image conforms to the human face as it is thought of, since these characteristic features form the basis of the mind's conception of the world. In this way, they create an image that is perhaps more representative of the object in question since it is closer to one's mental experience of it. Similarly, Cubist works represent objects from characteristic viewpoints or by including elements that are particularly representative of the object. Picasso's The Poet (1911) contains an element that is clearly a pipe, painted in a relatively traditional manner. From its presence the viewer infers that adjacent, less legible forms are the head and neck etc.
The effect this produces confirms that Cubism's multiple viewpoints cannot be descended from Cézanne alone, but that primitive art must have informed the engagement with his art. Looking at Cubist works, one does not sense, as one may with Cézanne, that the artist has walked around the object, recording it from successive angles. As Guy Habasque has noted, this would not constitute a break with Western conventions; it would only lead to a fragmentation of the object, while illusionistic techniques would remain intact.
In short, multiple viewpoints are not the ends in themselves, but the method by which objects are represented in their most characteristic aspects to reveal their fundamental nature. This implies that Cubism derived from primitive art its conceptual apprehension of the object, and confirms the belief that the Cubists made use of the principles rather than the forms of primitive art. Both had rejected naturalistic depiction in favour of a technique that, being more abstract, offered greater expressive potential. By this method, primitive artists had succeeded in creating imagination equivalents of nature - in recreating it, rather than reproducing it. That the Cubists shared this intention is apparent from Braque's statement: "the aim is not to reconstitute an anecdotal fact [i.e. mere, visual representation], but to constitute a pictorial fact."
Cubist space and volume tend to be dislocated and reassembled on the surface of the picture. "Backgrounds" are brought forward to the picture plane and unified with the "foreground" by their common use of linear scaffolding. Recession is suggested, rather than depicted, by subtle tonal contrasts that create an effect of fragmented planes facetted together. Modelling in light and shade is, therefore, replaced with light vibrations evoking a sense of volume and mass without resorting to illusionism. At their most sculptural, Cubist works resemble low reliefs. As Habasque has observed, it is difficult to see how primitive art could have yielded this solution. The sculptural forms of African masks seem irreconcilable with Cubism's emphasis on planarity and linearity. In this respect Cézanne's influence is much more significant.
