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             After a brief "Negro Period" , Picasso painted landscapes and still lives (at La Rue-des-Bois, where he spent the summer of 1908) marked by the influence of Paul Cezanne. It was these landscapes and those of George Braques that originated the style that, in 1908 was called "cubism".

             In the summer of 1910, Picasso worked with George Braque, creating geometric paintings which called the viewers attention to the painted surface itself. In that same year (1910), Picasso's works were exhibited at the Photo-Secession Gallery in New York City.

             In 1911, when Fernande Olivier left him, he met Marcelle Humbart, the mistress of the painter Louis Marcousis. She soon moved in with Picasso, who lovingly called her "Eva", signifying that she was the first woman in his affections, and began to paint her name into several still lives ("Ma Jolie," 1911-12, Museum of Modern Art, New York City; "J'aime Eva," 1912, Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio).

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             Spending the summer of 1911 with Braque at Ceret and Sorgues (Vaucluse), Picasso followed his friend's example in using the technique of "pasted papers", commercial paper imitating wood or marble, newspapers, matchboxes, tobacco labels and so on. This technique marked a change from the Analytical Cubism of 1910-11, still linked to Cezanne, to the Synthetic Cubism of the years 1912-14, which replaced common, recognizable images of reality by signs whose raw sculptural effect increased the expressive while they decreased the symbolic value. "When I want to paint a cup," Picasso commented, "I will show you that it is round, but it may be that the general rhythm and construction of the picture will oblige me to show that roundness as a square." .

             Just when Picasso's Cubism started to be recognized for its colour and imagination, the outbreak of war in 1914 arrived and caused a climate unfavourable for his work. The war also caused his separation from his friends.