The histories of literature and painting are intricately intertwined. Most movements in the one art are reproduced in or were prefigured by the other. James Joyce is like Abstract Expressionism, Clement Greenberg (in his essay, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch") suggested, because "Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake seem to be above all. . . the reduction of experience to expression for the sake of expression, the expression mattering more than what is being expressed." Zola is like Courbet. Romanticism is extremely well-represented in both arts. Dada had it's share of writers (Tristan Tzara, Paul Eluard, Raoul Haussmann) as well as painters (Marcel Duchamps, Francis Picabia). The ideas of Surrealism, with its background in Freud, were naturally literary; Andre Breton is, of course, the most noted pure Surrealist writer. Futurism had Marinetti. Most other art movements were reflected in literature in one way or another.
Cubism, however, seems to be the odd man out. There may be Cubist narratives. Certainly Synthetic Cubism, with its emphasis on collage, has been mimicked in literature (hypertext collages are fairly prolific). But Analytical Cubism, I believe, has never found a niche in literature. I hope, by this work, do demonstrate that that niche can now be found in hypertext.
We may also look at the fate of Analytical Cubism in its own sphere, that of art history. We may look at Barr's canonical flowchart (although it is no longer highly regarded, and to assign a geneology at all may be fallacious, I think that Barr's chart is fairly complete, if not exaggeratory, in regard to Cubism, limited to firmly established modern art movements), to find that Cubism has led to, among other movements, Suprematism, de Stijl, Constructivism, Bauhaus, and Orphic Cubism. The interesting fact is that each of these is an extension or development of the ideas of Flat Pattern Cubism and lack the fragmentation of three dimensionally modelled space of Analytical Cubism. Painters such as Gris, Leger, and Gliezes followed up Analytical Cubism to some extent, but the legacy died with them.
Academic Cubism may have fallen out of favor because it was too academic, because it was too controlled, because it was too difficult, or for a plethora of other reasons. I do not believe, however, that it reached its logical conclusion. As arguably the major art movement of the twentieth century, it is a shame that it died an early death. Perhaps in the medium of hypertext, a literary equivalent of Analytical Cubism can be further developed.
Ma Jolie