Braque Georges

His earliest works were impressionistic, but after seeing the work exhibited by the artistic group known as the Fauves (Beasts) in 1905, Braque adopted a Fauvist style The Fauves, a group that included Henri Matisse and André Derain among others, used brilliant colors to represent emotional response Braque worked most closely with the artists Raoul Dufy and Othon Friesz, who shared Braque‘s hometown of Le Havre, to develop a somewhat more subdued Fauvist style In 1906, Braque traveled with Friesz to L’Estaque, to Antwerp, and home to Le Havre to paint In May 1907, he successfully exhibited works of the Fauve style in the Salon des Indépendants The same year, Braque‘s style began a slow evolution as he became influenced by Paul Cézanne, who had died in 1906, and whose works were exhibited in Paris for the first time in a large-scale, museum-like retrospective in September 1907 The 1907 Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d’Automn greatly affected the avant-garde artists of Paris, resulting in the advent of Cubism Braque‘s paintings of 1908–1913 reflected his new interest in geometry and simultaneous perspective He conducted an intense study of the effects of light and perspective and the technical means that painters use to represent these effects, seeming to question the most standard of artistic conventions In his village scenes, for example, Braque frequently reduced an architectural structure to a geometric form approximating a cube, yet rendered its shading so that it looked both flat and three-dimensional by fragmenting the image He showed this in the painting Houses at l’Estaque Beginning in 1909, Braque began to work closely with Pablo Piccasso, who had been developing a similar style of painting At the time, Pablo Picasso was influenced by Gauguin, Cézanne, African msks and Iberian sculpture, while Braque was interested mainly in developing Cézanne‘s ideas of multiple perspectives “A comparison of the works of Picasso and Braque during 1908 reveals that the effect of his encounter with Picasso was more to accelerate and intensify Braque’s exploration of Cézanne’s ideas, rather than to divert his thinking in any essential way” Braque’s essential subject is the ordinary objects he has known practically forever Picasso celebrates animation, while Braque celebrates contemplation Thus, the invention of Cubism was a joint effort between Picasso and Braque, then residents of Montmartre, Paris These artists were the style’s main innovators After meeting in October or November 1907, Braque and Picasso, in particular, began working on the development of Cubism in 1908 Both artists produced paintings of monochromatic color and complex patterns of faceted form, now termed Analytic Cubism A decisive time of its development occurred during the summer of 1911, when Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso painted side by side in Céret in the French Pyrenees, each artist producing paintings that are difficult—sometimes virtually impossible—to distinguish from those of the other In 1912, they began to experiment with collage and Braque invented the papier collé technique French art critic Loiuse Vauxcelles used the terms bizarre cubiques in 1908 after seeing a picture by Braque He described it as ‘full of little cubes’ The term ‘Cubism’, first pronounced in 1911 with reference to artists exhibiting at the Salon des Indipéndants, quickly gained wide use but Picasso and Braque did not adopt it initially Art historian Ernst Gombrich described Cubism as the most radical attempt to stamp out ambiguity and to enforce one reading of the picture—that of a man-made construction, a colored canvas The Cubist style spread quickly throughout Paris and then Europe
The two artists’ productive collaboration continued and they worked closely together until the beginning of World War I in 1914, when Braque enlisted with the French Army In May 1915, Braque received a severe head injury in battle at Carency and suffered temporary blindness He was trepanned, and required a long period of recuperation Braque resumed painting in late 1916 Working alone, he began to moderate the harsh abstraction of cubism He developed a more personal style characterized by brilliant color, textured surfaces, and—after his relocation to the Normandy seacoast—the reappearance of the human figure He painted many still life subjects during this time, maintaining his emphasis on structure One example of this is his 1943 work Blue Guitar, which hangs in the Allen Memorial Art Museum During his recovery he became a close friend of the cubist artist Juan Gris He continued to work during the remainder of his life, producing a considerable number of paintings, graphics, and sculptures Braque, along with Matisse, is credited for introducing Pablo Picasso to Fernand Mourlot, and most of the lithographs and book illustrations he himself created during the 1940s and ’50s were produced at the Mourlot Studios In 1962, Braque worked with master printmaker Aldo Commelynck to create his series of etchings and aquatints titled L’Ordre des Oiseaux (The Order of Birds), which was accompanied by the poet Saint-John Perse’s text
Braque died on 31 August 1963, in Paris He is buried in the cemetery of the Church of St Valery in Varangeville-sur-Mer, Normandy, whose windows he designed Braque’s work is in most major museums throughout the world