By 1912, inspired by his friend Georges Braque, Picasso turned his attention away from figures to still lifes. And the two men, working side by side — “like roped mountain climbers,” in Braque’s words — developed what would come to be called Cubism. Cubism was, initially, far less a style (though it became that) than a way of rethinking art’s place in the world. To some artists at the beginning of the 20th century that place felt uncertain. Photography’s recording eye had made realist painting redundant. At the same time, with old social, scientific, religious and political certainties giving way, the very definition of reality was up for grabs.