Braque
Although George Braque (May 13, 1882
-
Aug. 31, 1963) was one of the most influential painters of the
twentieth
century his name is all but forgotten. He has received little
credit for his
efforts towards the creation of analytic cubism. Many art
historians believe
that his prestigious role as father of analytic cubism was
cut short because of
Picasso’s fame. Many arguments have arisen asking
the question: "Who is the
father of cubism?" There is no doubt that Picasso
started the spark which
ignited modern art movements with the creation of
"Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.."
But, soon after Picasso created this work
Braque created "Houses at
L’Estaque." This painting started the analytic
phase of cubism. With this in
mind, it can be stated that Picasso is the
father of modern twentieth century
art and Braque is the father of analytic
cubism. George Braque is one of the
most influential painters of the
twentieth century. He co-worked with Picasso to
create cubism and helped
spark all the future art movements of the twentieth
century. As well as this,
he was the influence that made Picasso the fame that
he was to become. Braque
has never received the recognition he should have
because of Picasso’s fame,
but his personal position in the art community was
high and his involvement
with World War One was a major culprits that aided in
his downfall in
artistic popularity. "Who the father of cubism?", has always
been a question
that has pondered the minds of art historians and scholars. It
is clear
though that both Braque and Picasso played their prominent role in
the
creation of cubism. Picasso provided, with his
proto-Cubist
"Demoiselles," the initial liberating shock. But it was
Braque,
largely because of his admiration for Cezanne, who provided much of
the early
tendency toward geometrical forms. Braque’s early tendency towards
geometric
form and cubes was the spark which ignited the minds of all future
cubist
artists; including Picasso. If there is one painting that is possibly
one of the
most influential images regarding cubism in the twenty first
century it is
George Braque’s "Houses at L’Estaque." During the summer of
1908 in
southern France, Braque painted a series of radically innovative
canvases, of
which the most celebrated is "Houses at L’Estaque"; in this
painting we
can see the slab volumes, sober coloring, and warped perspective
typical of the
first part of what has been called the analytical phase of
Cubism. This painting
was shown in a show at Kahnweiler's gallery. It
provoked from the Paris critic
Louis Vauxcelles a remark about "cubes"
that soon blossomed into a
stylistic label. This painting was the painting
that gave cubism its name.
Vauxcelles’s remarked about the canvas being
full of small cubes, and this
comment was the spark that constituted the name
of the movement. Braque
undertook Vauxcelles criticisms, much like other
movements of the past, and used
it for the name of the movement. ( Flam, 144)
In "Houses at L'Estaque" all
the sensuous elements of Braque's previous years
were banished. Color has been
reduced to a severe combination of browns, dull
greens and grays. The curving
rhythms have given way to a system of vertical
and horizontal, broken only by
the forty-five degree diagonals of roof-tops
and trees. All details have been
eliminated and the foliage of the trees
reduced to a minimum to reveal the
geometric severity of the houses. These
are continued upwards almost to the top
of the canvas so that the eye is
allowed no escape beyond them. The picture
plane is further emphasized by the
complete lack of aerial perspective (the far
houses are, if anything, darker
and stronger in value than the foreground
house), and by the fact that
occasionally contours are broken and forms opened
up into each other. There
is no central vanishing point; indeed in many of the
houses all the canons of
traditional perspective are completely broken. (Flam
145) Although Braque
was the first to create a cubist work, it is well known
that cubism was a
combined team effort that was created through the genius
partnership of both
Braque and Picasso. It is impossible to say which of the two
was the
principal stylistic inventor of the revolutionary new style, for at
the
height of their collaboration they exchanged ideas almost daily and
produced
pictures so alike as to be practically indistinguishable. Examples
of these
similarities are the various nude pictures of women that both
Picasso and Braque
created during the first years of analytic cubism. If we
compare George
Braque’s "Large Nude", to Picasso’s Three women; it is
easy to see that
they must have collaborated many ideas and exchanged
critical analysis of each
others work constantly. The images in these two
paintings look like they were
created in almost exactly the same format by
the same person. It can be stated
that George Braque and Pablo Picasso were
basically the same person for those
first years of analytic cubism. (Arnason,
189) By 1912 Braque, with the
assistance and inspirations of Picasso, created
a definitive definition of
analytic cubism. This newly created definition was
created through months of
trial and error and monumental discussions with
Picasso. This Cubist style
emphasized the flat, two-dimensional surface of
the picture plane, rejecting the
traditional techniques of perspective,
foreshortening, modeling, and chiaroscuro
and refuting time-honored theories
of art as the imitation of nature. Cubist
painters were not bound to copying
form, texture, color, and space; instead,
they presented a new reality in
paintings that depicted radically fragmented
objects, whose several sides
were seen simultaneously. (Brenson, C1) If there is
one aspect of Braque’s
life that is confusing, it is why he has not received
the recognition for his
works the way that Picasso has. Braque was just as much,
if not more, the
creator of analytic cubism. He worked alongside Picasso in
developing all
aspects of cubism from day one until the beginning of World War
One. The
only reason why Braque’s name is not remembered as well as
Picasso’s is
because of his enlistment to fight in World War One. This event
was the
turning point of his career. The events which conspired during WWI and
the
years that followed boosted Picasso’s Popularity while
diminished
Braque’s.(Frank,18) At this point in history, 1914, Braque
left the art scene
to fight in the war. He entered the army as an infantry
sergeant and served with
distinction, being decorated twice in 1914 for
bravery. In 1915 he suffered a
serious head wound, which was followed by a
trepanation, several months in the
hospital, and a long period of
convalescence at home at Sorgues. During this
period he added to the
aphorisms he had been in the habit of scribbling on the
margins of drawings,
and in 1917 a collection of these sayings, put together by
his friend the
poet Pierre Reverdy, was published in the review Nord-Sud as
"Thoughts and
Reflections on Painting." Even a brief sampling can
suggest the quality, at
once poetic and rational, of Braque's mind and the sort
of thinking that lay
behind Cubism: New means, new subjects. . . . The aim is
not to reconstitute
an anecdotal fact, but to constitute a pictorial fact. . ..
To work from
nature is to improvise. . . . The senses deform, the mind forms..
. . I love
the rule that corrects emotion. (Braque) Released from further
military
service, the artist rejoined the Cubist movement, which by then was in
what
is sometimes called its synthetic phase--a not very adequate way of
referring
to a tendency to use more color and to represent objects not by the
previous
spider web of analytical signs but by relatively large emblematic
planes.
(Frank, 18) Rapidly, however, he moved away from austere geometry
toward
forms softened by looser drawing and freer brushwork; an example of
the change
is the 1919 "Still Life with Playing Cards." From this point
onward
his style ceased to evolve in the methodical way it had during the
successive
phases of Cubism; it became a series of personal variations on the
stylistic
heritage of the eventful years before World War I. This change in
Braque’s
style, and his with drawl from cubism during the war ( 1914-1918 )
were the
major contributors to his loss of fame. Before the war the two
artist, Braque
and Picasso, were considered equals in every aspect of
painting. But, Braque
left the art scene for four years and Picasso used this
time to accelerate his
career ahead of Braque. Braque’s name was all but
forgotten due to this
absence. George Braque, through his creation of "Houses
L’Estaque" set the
standards for analytic cubism. He is the father of
analytic cubism, but this is
a title that the general public has no
recollection of. Picasso took the title
away from Braque when he was leading
the movement during World War One. George
Braque was out of the art scene
for to long to ever recover his role as the
prominent figure of cubism. (
John, 31) Braque, along side Picasso, can be
credited with sparking the
creations of various artistic styles with their
creation of the new visual
language of cubism. His visual language of cubism was
adopted and further
developed by numerous painters which followed his lead. Such
painters are
Fernand Lééger, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Juan Gris, Roger de
la
Fresnaye, Marcel Duchamp, Albert Gleizes, and Jean Metzinger. Though
primarily a
style associated with painting, Cubism also exerted a profound
influence on
20th-century sculpture and architecture. Chief among the
sculptors who worked in
this style are Alexander Archipenko, Raymond
Duchamp-Villon, and Jacques
Lipchitz. The adoption of the Cubist
aesthetic by the architect Le Corbusier is
reflected in the shapes of the
houses he designed during the 1920s. The cubist
style that was created by
Braque and Picasso was a fundamental foundation for
the future generations of
modernist painters. This style was an essential
building block in modern art.
George Braque, along with Picasso are the two most
influential artists of the
twenty first century. (Flam, 144) "Who is the
father of cubism?" Well I would
have to agree that Both Picasso and Braque put
their efforts together when
creating cubism, but Braque was the first to create
an analytic work: "House
at L’Estaque." They are both leaders of cubism,
but Braque was the first to
create a cubist work, so he should receive the title
of father of cubism.
These two leaders of cubism are the two most influential
painters of the
twentieth century. Braque and Picasso both were the foundation
artists who
started an aspect of all the future art movements of the twentieth
century.
(Golding 144) Braque has never received the recognition he should
have
because of Picasso’s fame, but by examining his life story and
understanding
the circumstances involved during his life we can see that he
has been
disregarded as the prominent figure that he is. Braque’s "House
at
L’Estaque" is the painting that sparked the start of analytic cubism
and
that painting is one of the turning points in art. Although Picasso
became the
father of modern art with his "Les Demoiselles d’Avignon", Braque
is the
father of cubism because he created the first analytic work. Braque
has never
received the recognition he deserves, and it coincides well with a
quote that
Braque stated himself: "In art there is only one thing that
counts: the thing
you can't explain." George
Braque
Bibliography
1) Brenson, M. "Picasso and Braque, Brothers
in Cubism."
New York Times. 91/22/89, p C1
2) Clark, Michael.
"Braque- George ( back to basics)."
Times Educational Supplement.
1/31/97. Issue 4205, p.10
3) Flam, J. "Cubiquitous." Art News. Dec 89, p
144
4) George Braque, Illustrated Notebook, 1971-1975. Ed
S.
Applebaun, Dover, NY
5) Golding, J. "Two who made a
Revolution." New York
Review of Books. 5/31/90, Vol 37 issue 9 p
8.
6) Gopinik, A. "A Leap in the Dark." New Yorker. 10/23/89,
p
132.
7) History of Modern Art, H.H. Arnason & Marla F.
Prather,
4th Edition
8) John Golding, Cubism: A History and an
Analysis, 1907-1914
9) Richard, John. "Braque, The great forgotten
modernist."
New York Review of Books. 2/27/97. Vol 44 Issue 5, P
31.
10) Whitfork, Frank. "Royal Academy of Arts." TLS.
2/14/97.
Issue 4898 p.18
11)"Will George Braque every get his due?" Hudson
Review.
Autumn 97, Vol 50 Issue 3, P 444.