Georges Braque Paintings

By Darren Hartley


Georges Braque paintings were at the forefront of the revolutionary art movement of Cubism. They focused on still lives and on means of viewing objects from various perspectives through color, line and texture. Georges is best known for Cubist works done in collaboration with Pablo Picasso. However, Georges himself has a long painting career that continued beyond Cubism.

The technique used in the early Cubist Georges Braque paintings leaned towards creative painting. Georges was actually guided towards the technique at a young age. It is construed that his interest in texture and tactility were products of his working with his father as a decorator in his father's decorative painting business.

The earliest Georges Braque paintings pursued Fauvist ideas, in coordination with Henri Matisse. In 1906, Georges contributed his colourful Fauvist paintings in his first exhibition held at the Salon de Independants. It was in 1907 that he became extremely affected by a visit to Pablo Picasso's studio.

Georges and Pablo worked in synchronicity until Georges' return from war in 1914. Georges felt that Pablo betrayed their Cubist systems and rules, when Pablo began painting figuratively. It was then that Georges decided to work on his own Georges Braque paintings.

Georges Braque paintings continued to be works of a true Analytical Cubist, much longer than Pablo Picasso, whose style, subject matter and palettes changed continuously. What was most interesting to Georges was the showcasing of how objects look when viewed over time in different temporal spaces and pictorial planes.

In the 1930s, Georges Braque paintings portrayed Greek horses and deities, stripped of their symbolism and viewed through a purely formal lens. They were exercises in calligraphy because they were not strictly about figures, rather more about sheer lines and shapes.




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