Cubism was a form of modern abstract art that was developed by Georges Braques and Pablo Picasso. It was created to revitalize the Western art traditions that had seemingly ran their course. The cubists goal was to challenge the traditional forms of representation, like perspective. They wanted to develop another way for things to be seen that reflected their own time period.
The western societies, in 1870 to 1910, had more progress technologically than the four centuries before. There were many inventions in this time such as the airplane, cars, telephone, sound recording, cinematography, and photography. It was the dawn of a new age. The artists of the day were looking for a way to evolve as well instead of using the traditional techniques. They were no longer needed to document the age they lived in now that photography was available. The radical approach they adopted was cubism.
One of the limitations for the Cubists was the perspective only being able to be seen from one viewpoint. This restricted their options. Since the image was drawn from one position, as if it were frozen, it appeared like a snapshot. The Cubists wanted to make their art go beyond that limit of perspective. They wanted the viewers to see relativity, how the artist could see and select certain elements from a subject and fuse them into one image. To accomplish this, the Cubists had to study the way things are seen.
When you look at something, your eye will scan over it and stop on certain details before it moves on. You can change your viewpoint of the object by looking at it from different positions. Because of this, the Cubists suggested that your sight is the sum of many viewing angles and your memory of the piece comes from those many angles. The Cubists used their abstract paintings as an attempt to create a more realistic way to see things.
Generally, the Cubist painting will depict real objects, places, or people, but not from a set point of view. It will, instead give you different angles of the subject at one and reconstruct them into a composition of colors, forms, and planes.
Cubism is a rather radical form of art that took a lot of study to form. It remains one of the more challenging types of arts to portray, even today.