ABSTRACT
Collage played a pivotal role in the evolution of Cubism, and Cubism had, of course, a pivotal role in the evolution of modern painting and sculpture. By the end of 1911 both masters had pretty well turned traditional illusionist paintings inside out. The fictive depths of the picture had been drained to a level very close to the actual paint surface. In that same year Braque introduced capital letters and numbers stencilled in trompe-'aeil in paintings whose motifs offered no realistic excuse for their presence. In 1912, Georges Braque 'introduced bits of green or gray marbleized surfaces into some of his pictures and also rectangular strips painted in imitation of wood grain'. Picasso and Braque began to use pasted paper and cloth of different hues, textures and patterns, as well as a variety of trompe-l' oeil elements, within one and the same work.
