"By observing, one changes people and the world": This was a principle of Carl Einstein. For him, objects of art and their history were tools to understand and change the political, social, and cultural currents of the time. In his 1934 essay "On Georges Braque and Cubism," he advocated for protecting Braque from the descriptive hairdressers of his trade. Aware of the potential dangers of visual effects, Einstein demanded immediacy in perception and personal responsibility of the viewer towards the works. This approach was methodically realized in the publication of image plates, which were meant to document the independence of the works. A dual humanism towards both the image and the viewer runs through Carl Einstein's analysis of Cubism, which is characterized by its detailed close-up examination of the object.