THE PORT OF ANTWERP 1906
This painting is characteristic of his Fauvism period. Braque visited Antwerp, and painted this Belgian port scene from his hotel window. All the elements of this view are characteristic of the Fauve style, from the abbreviated brushwork to the chromatic sky, water, boats, and balcony
“Once an object has been incorporated in a picture it accepts a new destiny.”
G
eorges Braque is known for being one of the most significant French painters of the 20th century. He was born on the 13th of May, 1882 in Argenteuil, Val-d’Oise and died on August 31st, 1963. Georges grew up and trained to be a house painter and decorator like his father and grandfather before him. But he took drawing and painting very seriously and studied in the evenings at the École des BeauxArts in Le Harve from 1897 to 1899. In Paris, he apprenticed with a decorator and was awarded his certificate in 1902. He studied
painting at Académie Humbert until 1904 and met Marie Laurencin and Francis Picabia, fellow French artists. His Earliest works were influenced by impressionists. He was effected by Henri Matise and started producing art works adopted in the Fauvist style Fauvism was a focus on Sensory. It’s concept was that colour should be used to express freely, not subordinate to drawing and composition, and also should be used for represnting the way the painter’s heart felt rather than what the eye sees as colour.
1
In November of 1907, Georges Braque met pablo Picasso while at Paul Cezanne’s art exhibition. Braque was strongly stimulated by ‘Les Demoiselles d’avignon’ — the famous oil painting by Pablo Picasso. Braques painted ‘House at L’estaque,’ in 1908 that adopted the composition of Cezanne’s works, but the houses were painted in simple cube shapes. His insperation for cubism was developed from the style of Cezanne, unlike Picasso’s cubism which was influenced from African art. By the begining of the 20th century, Picasso and Braque
worked on the development of Cubism. Through art, Braque pursued to portray his feelings on a canvas and to understand beauty in the reality in his mind. His view of art is not to duplicate reality nor beautify reality. Instead, it was like writing a poem with geometric shapes, volume, mass and lines to express his subjective impression of beauty found in the model. Thus cubism was born! Cubism is a form of art, where objects are broken up, analyzed, and reassembled in an abstracted form. The artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Until then, people were familiar with religious and academic art, which was based on the subject matter
that existed in reality. In this regard, Cubism made a great impact on how people viewed this new style of art; expressing subjective impression in an abstract form, cubism reformed the meaning of art and changed the whole perspective of art in art history. An art dealer bye the name of Daniel Henry Kahnweiler made a move abroad to promote Cubism art. Braque’s and Picasso’s art works went public in New York and Munich. The Exhibition spread Cubism around the world in 1911, influening many artists after them.
WOMEN WITH GUITAR 1913
source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Georges_Braque
2
Though the image is fractured, it is not chaotic, Braque demonstrates great use of visual balance in this painting and is a great example of his early works in his cubism period