An early 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Braque and Picasso, and later joined by others such as Léger, which revolutionised European painting and sculpture and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. Before the emergence of Cubism, painters worked from the limiting factor of a single viewpoint. Cubism introduced the idea of representing objects as remembered from successive and subjective experiences within the context of both space and time.

The term is mainly used in association with art produced in Paris during this period based on the theoretical groundwork established by Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes around 1910. Variants such as Futurism and Constructivism developed in other countries.

Pablo Picasso's 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon has often been considered a proto-Cubist work and Georges Braque's 1908 Houses at L’Estaque (and related works) was similarly regarded. Gertrude Stein referred to landscapes by Picasso in 1909, such as Reservoir at Horta de Ebro, as the first Cubist paintings. The first organised group exhibition by Cubists took place at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in the spring of 1911 in a room called 'Salle 41' and included works by Metzinger, Fernand Léger and Robert Delaunay, but surprisingly no works by Picasso or Braque.

A primary influence that led to Cubism was the representation of three-dimensional form in the late works of Cézanne. In Cubist artwork, objects are analysed, broken up and reassembled in an abstracted form - instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context.

In practice, there were at least two fairly distinct schools of Cubism. Some such as Delaunay (often referred to as the Orphists or Orphism) accepted abstraction by removing visible subject matter entirely, while Picasso and Braque resisted total abstraction.