Essay: Picasso & Braque
Aug. 23rd, 2009 08:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silentdescantBecause I know you guys are sooo interested... And I'm posting it before it's been graded because I don't care what my teacher says about it, I'm pretty proud of it. It's pretty short, as far as research papers go (slightly over 2000 words), but it's kind of dense, so. :\
The intense, intimate friendship of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque played a vital role in the development of Cubism. The difference in temperaments and methods of Picasso and Braque did not keep them from producing remarkably similar paintings in 1911, Ma Jolie (Picasso) and The Portuguese (Braque), and indeed, many of their paintings over the course of their collaboration appeared very much alike. Through their intersecting influences, namely Cézanne, and what they learned from each other by working closely together, Picasso and Braque’s paths through Cubism intertwined. Their complimentary differences made the Analytic phase of Cubism possible.
Picasso, originally the more famous of the two men, was considered bold and daring, a risk-taker. His flamboyance is visible in his work, which has been described as “nervous and turbulent,” having “mute violence”, while Braque’s had a “musical calm” and tranquility [1]. Braque, on the other hand, was more reserved and detached from his art, working deliberately and more slowly than Picasso, and therefore “the total number of works executed by Braque between 1909 and 1914 is considerably less than half of the output of Picasso.” [2] The men’s personalities showed through their paintings, and the artists’ dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, called Braque the “gentle moon” to Picasso’s “radiant sun” [3], and indeed, his work is more serene than Picasso’s harsher, more vibrant angles and rapid brushstrokes [4].
Many poets and writers during this period credit Picasso with much of the progression of Cubism, because of his fame and his large body of work, but Braque, in fact, played a very large part in developing the rules that structured Analytical Cubism [5]. Because he was more well-known in the art community, other artists and writers focused on Picasso’s work rather than Braque’s, even though Picasso himself defended Braque and was inspired by his innovative work. Braque spent much more time on his pieces than Picasso because he didn’t like to draw and primarily used paint instead of charcoal or pencils [6], and therefore took longer to finish individual pieces, but he was nonetheless prolific and Picasso greatly admired him.
Before they met, Picasso had become quite famous in his own right, particularly through his Blue and Rose periods, which primarily occurred from 1904 to 1906. They featured Picasso beginning to move away from the more traditional, realistic methods of painting forms and scenes on a canvas. He then became obsessed with African art, which serves as an eventual major influence to Cubism, especially the conceptualism of the figures in African art [7]. Picasso collected African masks, and the inspiration he experienced from those is evident in much of his work of that period. Large, oval-shaped eyes and sloping, block-like noses showed up in his paintings as a deviation from realistic portrayals of people. Picasso also continued to emphasize the flat canvas, referencing Egyptian and other ancient art’s primitive, simplified shapes [8].
Braque, meanwhile, greatly admired the Fauves, especially Cézanne and Matisse, and his early paintings took that Modernist direction, with bright colors and simplified shapes, as he explored and grew as an artist. He preferred painting still-lifes and landscapes to portraits, and this continued through his Cubist work. He didn’t paint any portraits during that phase of his life; Picasso was much more interested in human figures and was the only one of them to do Cubist portraits [9]. Unlike Picasso, Braque was often unhappy with his finished products and thus destroyed them during his earlier years [10]. In 1906 he submitted seven pieces to the Salon des Indépendants, but because “none excited any interest whatsoever. All were subsequently destroyed.” [11]
In 1907, Picasso and Braque were introduced to each other, possibly by poet Guillume Apollinaire [12], and they became friends in the next year. Between the years of 1908 and 1912, the two developed a very close relationship during which they collaborated often, together inventing what is now known as the Analytic phase of Cubism. They began with similar ideas, each of them searching “for ‘less unstable elements’ in the objects which they chose to represent.” [13] As Braque himself put it, “Despite our very different temperaments, we were guided by a common idea.” [14] They shared influences as well, most notably Cézanne and his methods of flattening objects. Through working together, they tried to accomplish some of the same goals: a further flattening of the canvas and the subjects pictured there, and this, paired with the idea of multiple viewpoints, gave them the beginnings of Analytic Cubism, with the distinctive fragmented, disjointed objects.
Picasso was the one who kick-started the move towards Cubism with his painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (fig.1) in 1907, which Braque described as volatile, as if Picasso “wanted to make us drink kerosene to spit fire.” [15] Braque began pushing his own boundaries, inspired by Picasso’s revolutionary work, and moved away from realism and the Fauves. Picasso’s influence is obvious in one of Braque’s next works, Grande Nu (fig.2) [16], also produced in 1907. The face of the figure has the distinctive almond-shaped eyes of Picasso’s African masks, and yet in addition to the Les Demoiselles connections, the curves and the vivid colors reference Cézanne and Matisse more than Picasso [17]. Braque said to American writer Gelett Burgess, “I couldn’t portray a woman in all her natural loveliness. …I haven’t the skill, no one has. I must, therefore, create a new sort of beauty, the beauty that appears to me in terms of volume, of line, of mass, of weight, and through that beauty interpret my subjective impression.” [18] Though he had abandoned traditional Fauvism, Braque continued exploring more in the style of Cézanne and Matisse, still using relatively vivid colors and visible brushstrokes in his landscape paintings of 1908, even as he and Picasso became close friends and collaborators. The artists kept in touch through letters and were always enthusiastic about seeing each other’s projects [19].
Immediately prior to this period of history, in 1895, the Lumiére brothers created the first motion pictures, and Picasso attended the first showing in Barcelona. He then returned with friends on Friday nights to theaters in Paris, and his love of motion pictures grew [20]. During the time they were friends, Picasso and Braque repeatedly went to watch films together. In light of this, art historians are now seeing correlations between the films and Cubist art which have never been discussed before. The techniques used for films—jump-cuts, multiple camera angles, multiple light sources—translate into Picasso and Braque’s paintings as the faceted, glittering fragments of forms, which are a way to visually portray the simultaneous multiple viewpoints on a still canvas [21]. It is as if the fragments in the paintings represent individual frames of film as the camera moves around the figure, jumbled together in a collage. Early films may have also played a part in Picasso and Braque’s disuse of color. “[They] had to brush color aside,” as it would only complicate the analytic process of their paintings [22].
It is inevitable that friends who admire each other’s work will come to be influenced by it, and such was the case of Picasso and Braque. Over the course of only a handful of months, they became almost inseparable [23]. They visited each other’s studios daily, always excited to see new projects and paintings in progress. When they were apart, they kept in contact via letters. Their friendship was a very close one, and they often spent hours together, simply talking about art, and letting the rest of the world fade to the background. Picasso even had an affectionate nickname for Braque, “Wilburg,” which is a bastardization of Wilbur Wright’s name in reference to Braque’s paper sculptures being similar to the Wright brothers’ “equally flimsy contraptions” [24]. Picasso and Braque were fascinated with the Wright brothers’ innovations with airplanes, and Braque even used this nickname to sign some of his letters and paintings [25]. The friends kept up a healthy rivalry, eager to push each other to the next new idea.
The Analytic phase of Cubism really developed as a back-and-forth dialogue of experimentation between the two artists. Because their personalities were so opposite, with Picasso bringing the bold, dramatic flamboyance and Braque contributing the more reserved, considered, and thoughtful point of view, they complimented each other well. Over the course of their friendship, these traits began to rub off on each other; Picasso became more analytical and deliberate in his painting, and Braque took more daring risks with his work.
In the infancy of Cubism, Picasso, with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, flattened the figures and took out the depth and shading, using harsher angles and influences from African and Egyptian art [26]. As shown clearly in his painting Three Women (fig.3), Picasso experimented with simplifying objects into flat planes, though he still gave them depth and a type of physical form. The figures are less abstract than in Les Demoiselles, but they show how Picasso moved toward the fragmentations of later Analytic Cubism. Braque, meanwhile, worked towards erasing the illusion of space and depth in his pieces by making the subjects and the background bleed together and overlap, in paintings such as Castle at La Roche-Guyon (fig.4).
The figures and objects in both Picasso and Braque’s paintings slowly became more abstract and they both used a limited palette. The inconsistent light sources add visual interest in the highlights of many of the pieces, breaking the monotony of the dark, drab colors, mostly browns, greys, and greens [27]. The paintings of Braque and Picasso during the years from 1908 to 1912 were often unsigned and undated, and it is, at times, unclear which artist created which piece, even to the artists themselves [28], though Braque’s work in general was softer and more deliberate when compared to Picasso’s. Both men tried to achieve the goal of emphasizing pictorial representations of subjects rather than identifiable visual representations, and they did this by continuing to compress and rearrange the space depicted on their canvases. Braque even introduced typography to the Analytical style [29], further reinforcing the idea of a two-dimensional space, and serving as a start to the artists’ later work with paper collages [30].
Analytic Cubism culminated in works such as Picasso’s Ma Jolie (fig.5) and Braque’s The Portuguese (fig.6). These two paintings, which the artists created while apart from each other, conform to the “rigorously restricted and impersonal vocabulary of simple geometric shapes” [31] of Analytic Cubism that Picasso and Braque developed together and “executed with a keen sense of…individual and irregular brushwork.” [32] The striking similarities are a result of their shared influences, like Cézanne and the Lumiére films, and of working so closely together as such intimate friends. Braque famously said that he and Picasso were “roped together like mountain climbers” [33] during their journey through Cubism, holding each other up and taking turns being the leader, the innovator. Picasso and Braque kept much of their talks about Cubism private, however, and historians realize that they will probably never know exactly what the two artists discussed beyond what is visible in their work, which diverged markedly after they separated in 1914. “The Cubist idiom as we see it in the paintings of Braque and Picasso was evolved by and for themselves alone, working in accordance with their personal intuition and not concerned with any pre-established principles or theories.” [34]
--------------------------------------
1 William Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism (New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1989), 44-45.
2 Douglas Cooper, Cubist Epoch (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1971).
3 Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, 45.
4 John Golding, Cubism: A History & an Analysis 1907-1914, 2nd ed. (Boston, Massachusetts: Boston Book & Art Shop, 1968), 80.
5 Michael Brenson, "Picasso and Braque, Brothers in Cubism," New York Times, September 22, 1989 1989.
6 Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, 17.
7 Golding, Cubism: A History & an Analysis 1907-1914, 59.
8 Cooper, Cubist Epoch, 23.
9 Christopher Lyon, "A Shared Vision an Introduction To "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism"," MoMA 2, no. 2 (1989): 11.
10 Nicole Worms de Romilly and Jean Laude, Braque: Cubism 1907-1914, vol. 7, Catalogue Raisonne of Braque's Work (Paris: Maeght Editeur, 1982), 57.
11 Alex Danchev, Georges Braque: A Life (New York, New York: Arcade Publishing, Inc., 2005), 40.
12 Karen Wilkin, Georges Braque, ed. Nancy Grub, vol. 14, Modern Masters (New York: Abbeville Press, 1991), 29.
13 Douglas Cooper and Gary Tinterow, The Essential Cubism 1907-1920 (New York, New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1984), 12.
14 Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, 52.
15 Wilkin, Georges Braque, 32.
16 Maly and Dietfried Gerhardus, Cubism and Futurism (New York, New York: E.P.Dutton, 1979), 42.
17 Cooper and Tinterow, The Essential Cubism 1907-1920, 38.
18 Wilkin, Georges Braque, 32.
19 Danchev, Georges Braque: A Life.
20 "A Discussion About Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism with Bernice Rose and Arne Glimcher ", in Charlie Rose (2007).
21 Ibid.
22 Lyon, "A Shared Vision an Introduction To "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism"."
23 Brenson, "Picasso and Braque, Brothers in Cubism."
24 Danchev, Georges Braque: A Life, 69.
25 Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism.
26 Cooper, Cubist Epoch.
27 Golding, Cubism: A History & an Analysis 1907-1914, 71.
28 Danchev, Georges Braque: A Life.
29 Lyon, "A Shared Vision an Introduction To "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism"," 11.
30 Golding, Cubism: A History & an Analysis 1907-1914, 95.
31 Robert Rosenblum, Cubism and Twentieth-Century Art, 2nd ed. (New York, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1976), 66.
32 Ibid.
33 Wilkin, Georges Braque, 7.
34 Cooper and Tinterow, The Essential Cubism 1907-1920, 11.
Illustrations [linked in the text]
Works Cited
Brenson, Michael. "Picasso and Braque, Brothers in Cubism." New York Times, September 22, 1989 1989.
Cooper, Douglas. Cubist Epoch. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1971.
Cooper, Douglas, and Gary Tinterow. The Essential Cubism 1907-1920. New York, New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1984.
Danchev, Alex. Georges Braque: A Life. New York, New York: Arcade Publishing, Inc., 2005.
"A Discussion About Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism with Bernice Rose and Arne Glimcher ". In Charlie Rose, 25:23, 2007.
Gerhardus, Maly and Dietfried. Cubism and Futurism. New York, New York: E.P.Dutton, 1979.
Golding, John. Cubism: A History & an Analysis 1907-1914. 2nd ed. Boston, Massachusetts: Boston Book & Art Shop, 1968.
Lyon, Christopher. "A Shared Vision an Introduction To "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism"." MoMA 2, no. 2 (1989): 7-13.
Rosenblum, Robert. Cubism and Twentieth-Century Art. 2nd ed. New York, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1976.
Rubin, William. Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism. New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1989.
Wilkin, Karen. Georges Braque. Edited by Nancy Grub. Vol. 14, Modern Masters. New York: Abbeville Press, 1991.
Worms de Romilly, Nicole, and Jean Laude. Braque: Cubism 1907-1914. Vol. 7, Catalogue Raisonne of Braque's Work. Paris: Maeght Editeur, 1982.
Bibliography
"A Discussion About Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism with Bernice Rose and Arne Glimcher ". In Charlie Rose, 25:23, 2007.
"Georges Braque, Le Violoncelle." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 56, no. 2 (1969): 55-62.
Brenson, Michael. "Picasso and Braque, Brothers in Cubism." New York Times, September 22, 1989 1989.
Cooper, Douglas. Cubist Epoch. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1971.
Cooper, Douglas, and Gary Tinterow. The Essential Cubism 1907-1920. New York, New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1984.
Danchev, Alex. Georges Braque: A Life. New York, New York: Arcade Publishing, Inc., 2005.
Fry, Edward F. "Cubism 1907-1908: An Early Eyewitness Account." The Art Bulletin 48, no. 1 (1966): 70-73.
Gerhardus, Maly and Dietfried. Cubism and Futurism. New York, New York: E.P.Dutton, 1979.
Golding, John. Cubism: A History & an Analysis 1907-1914. 2nd ed. Boston, Massachusetts: Boston Book & Art Shop, 1968.
Heller, Nancy G. Why a Painting Is Like a Pizza. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Kennedy, Randy. "When Picasso and Braque Went to the Movies." New York Times, 4-15-2007 2007.
Lyon, Christopher. "A Shared Vision an Introduction To "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism"." MoMA 2, no. 2 (1989): 7-13.
McCully, Marilyn, ed. Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1997.
Rosenblum, Robert. Cubism and Twentieth-Century Art. 2nd ed. New York, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1976.
Rubin, William. Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism. New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1989.
Smith, Roberta. "Art in Review; Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism." New York Times, 6-1-2007 2007.
Wilkin, Karen. Georges Braque. Edited by Nancy Grub. Vol. 14, Modern Masters. New York: Abbeville Press, 1991.
Worms de Romilly, Nicole, and Jean Laude. Braque: Cubism 1907-1914. Vol. 7, Catalogue Raisonne of Braque's Work. Paris: Maeght Editeur, 1982.
So that's a research paper in, like, what, three days? /o\ I had to pretty much start over from scratch after the draft I sent in. Now I only have one more discussion to post and I am DONE with this class. And pretty much done with art history! \o/
Picasso and Braque: Analytic Cubism Through Collaboration
The intense, intimate friendship of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque played a vital role in the development of Cubism. The difference in temperaments and methods of Picasso and Braque did not keep them from producing remarkably similar paintings in 1911, Ma Jolie (Picasso) and The Portuguese (Braque), and indeed, many of their paintings over the course of their collaboration appeared very much alike. Through their intersecting influences, namely Cézanne, and what they learned from each other by working closely together, Picasso and Braque’s paths through Cubism intertwined. Their complimentary differences made the Analytic phase of Cubism possible.
Picasso, originally the more famous of the two men, was considered bold and daring, a risk-taker. His flamboyance is visible in his work, which has been described as “nervous and turbulent,” having “mute violence”, while Braque’s had a “musical calm” and tranquility [1]. Braque, on the other hand, was more reserved and detached from his art, working deliberately and more slowly than Picasso, and therefore “the total number of works executed by Braque between 1909 and 1914 is considerably less than half of the output of Picasso.” [2] The men’s personalities showed through their paintings, and the artists’ dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, called Braque the “gentle moon” to Picasso’s “radiant sun” [3], and indeed, his work is more serene than Picasso’s harsher, more vibrant angles and rapid brushstrokes [4].
Many poets and writers during this period credit Picasso with much of the progression of Cubism, because of his fame and his large body of work, but Braque, in fact, played a very large part in developing the rules that structured Analytical Cubism [5]. Because he was more well-known in the art community, other artists and writers focused on Picasso’s work rather than Braque’s, even though Picasso himself defended Braque and was inspired by his innovative work. Braque spent much more time on his pieces than Picasso because he didn’t like to draw and primarily used paint instead of charcoal or pencils [6], and therefore took longer to finish individual pieces, but he was nonetheless prolific and Picasso greatly admired him.
Before they met, Picasso had become quite famous in his own right, particularly through his Blue and Rose periods, which primarily occurred from 1904 to 1906. They featured Picasso beginning to move away from the more traditional, realistic methods of painting forms and scenes on a canvas. He then became obsessed with African art, which serves as an eventual major influence to Cubism, especially the conceptualism of the figures in African art [7]. Picasso collected African masks, and the inspiration he experienced from those is evident in much of his work of that period. Large, oval-shaped eyes and sloping, block-like noses showed up in his paintings as a deviation from realistic portrayals of people. Picasso also continued to emphasize the flat canvas, referencing Egyptian and other ancient art’s primitive, simplified shapes [8].
Braque, meanwhile, greatly admired the Fauves, especially Cézanne and Matisse, and his early paintings took that Modernist direction, with bright colors and simplified shapes, as he explored and grew as an artist. He preferred painting still-lifes and landscapes to portraits, and this continued through his Cubist work. He didn’t paint any portraits during that phase of his life; Picasso was much more interested in human figures and was the only one of them to do Cubist portraits [9]. Unlike Picasso, Braque was often unhappy with his finished products and thus destroyed them during his earlier years [10]. In 1906 he submitted seven pieces to the Salon des Indépendants, but because “none excited any interest whatsoever. All were subsequently destroyed.” [11]
In 1907, Picasso and Braque were introduced to each other, possibly by poet Guillume Apollinaire [12], and they became friends in the next year. Between the years of 1908 and 1912, the two developed a very close relationship during which they collaborated often, together inventing what is now known as the Analytic phase of Cubism. They began with similar ideas, each of them searching “for ‘less unstable elements’ in the objects which they chose to represent.” [13] As Braque himself put it, “Despite our very different temperaments, we were guided by a common idea.” [14] They shared influences as well, most notably Cézanne and his methods of flattening objects. Through working together, they tried to accomplish some of the same goals: a further flattening of the canvas and the subjects pictured there, and this, paired with the idea of multiple viewpoints, gave them the beginnings of Analytic Cubism, with the distinctive fragmented, disjointed objects.
Picasso was the one who kick-started the move towards Cubism with his painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (fig.1) in 1907, which Braque described as volatile, as if Picasso “wanted to make us drink kerosene to spit fire.” [15] Braque began pushing his own boundaries, inspired by Picasso’s revolutionary work, and moved away from realism and the Fauves. Picasso’s influence is obvious in one of Braque’s next works, Grande Nu (fig.2) [16], also produced in 1907. The face of the figure has the distinctive almond-shaped eyes of Picasso’s African masks, and yet in addition to the Les Demoiselles connections, the curves and the vivid colors reference Cézanne and Matisse more than Picasso [17]. Braque said to American writer Gelett Burgess, “I couldn’t portray a woman in all her natural loveliness. …I haven’t the skill, no one has. I must, therefore, create a new sort of beauty, the beauty that appears to me in terms of volume, of line, of mass, of weight, and through that beauty interpret my subjective impression.” [18] Though he had abandoned traditional Fauvism, Braque continued exploring more in the style of Cézanne and Matisse, still using relatively vivid colors and visible brushstrokes in his landscape paintings of 1908, even as he and Picasso became close friends and collaborators. The artists kept in touch through letters and were always enthusiastic about seeing each other’s projects [19].
Immediately prior to this period of history, in 1895, the Lumiére brothers created the first motion pictures, and Picasso attended the first showing in Barcelona. He then returned with friends on Friday nights to theaters in Paris, and his love of motion pictures grew [20]. During the time they were friends, Picasso and Braque repeatedly went to watch films together. In light of this, art historians are now seeing correlations between the films and Cubist art which have never been discussed before. The techniques used for films—jump-cuts, multiple camera angles, multiple light sources—translate into Picasso and Braque’s paintings as the faceted, glittering fragments of forms, which are a way to visually portray the simultaneous multiple viewpoints on a still canvas [21]. It is as if the fragments in the paintings represent individual frames of film as the camera moves around the figure, jumbled together in a collage. Early films may have also played a part in Picasso and Braque’s disuse of color. “[They] had to brush color aside,” as it would only complicate the analytic process of their paintings [22].
It is inevitable that friends who admire each other’s work will come to be influenced by it, and such was the case of Picasso and Braque. Over the course of only a handful of months, they became almost inseparable [23]. They visited each other’s studios daily, always excited to see new projects and paintings in progress. When they were apart, they kept in contact via letters. Their friendship was a very close one, and they often spent hours together, simply talking about art, and letting the rest of the world fade to the background. Picasso even had an affectionate nickname for Braque, “Wilburg,” which is a bastardization of Wilbur Wright’s name in reference to Braque’s paper sculptures being similar to the Wright brothers’ “equally flimsy contraptions” [24]. Picasso and Braque were fascinated with the Wright brothers’ innovations with airplanes, and Braque even used this nickname to sign some of his letters and paintings [25]. The friends kept up a healthy rivalry, eager to push each other to the next new idea.
The Analytic phase of Cubism really developed as a back-and-forth dialogue of experimentation between the two artists. Because their personalities were so opposite, with Picasso bringing the bold, dramatic flamboyance and Braque contributing the more reserved, considered, and thoughtful point of view, they complimented each other well. Over the course of their friendship, these traits began to rub off on each other; Picasso became more analytical and deliberate in his painting, and Braque took more daring risks with his work.
In the infancy of Cubism, Picasso, with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, flattened the figures and took out the depth and shading, using harsher angles and influences from African and Egyptian art [26]. As shown clearly in his painting Three Women (fig.3), Picasso experimented with simplifying objects into flat planes, though he still gave them depth and a type of physical form. The figures are less abstract than in Les Demoiselles, but they show how Picasso moved toward the fragmentations of later Analytic Cubism. Braque, meanwhile, worked towards erasing the illusion of space and depth in his pieces by making the subjects and the background bleed together and overlap, in paintings such as Castle at La Roche-Guyon (fig.4).
The figures and objects in both Picasso and Braque’s paintings slowly became more abstract and they both used a limited palette. The inconsistent light sources add visual interest in the highlights of many of the pieces, breaking the monotony of the dark, drab colors, mostly browns, greys, and greens [27]. The paintings of Braque and Picasso during the years from 1908 to 1912 were often unsigned and undated, and it is, at times, unclear which artist created which piece, even to the artists themselves [28], though Braque’s work in general was softer and more deliberate when compared to Picasso’s. Both men tried to achieve the goal of emphasizing pictorial representations of subjects rather than identifiable visual representations, and they did this by continuing to compress and rearrange the space depicted on their canvases. Braque even introduced typography to the Analytical style [29], further reinforcing the idea of a two-dimensional space, and serving as a start to the artists’ later work with paper collages [30].
Analytic Cubism culminated in works such as Picasso’s Ma Jolie (fig.5) and Braque’s The Portuguese (fig.6). These two paintings, which the artists created while apart from each other, conform to the “rigorously restricted and impersonal vocabulary of simple geometric shapes” [31] of Analytic Cubism that Picasso and Braque developed together and “executed with a keen sense of…individual and irregular brushwork.” [32] The striking similarities are a result of their shared influences, like Cézanne and the Lumiére films, and of working so closely together as such intimate friends. Braque famously said that he and Picasso were “roped together like mountain climbers” [33] during their journey through Cubism, holding each other up and taking turns being the leader, the innovator. Picasso and Braque kept much of their talks about Cubism private, however, and historians realize that they will probably never know exactly what the two artists discussed beyond what is visible in their work, which diverged markedly after they separated in 1914. “The Cubist idiom as we see it in the paintings of Braque and Picasso was evolved by and for themselves alone, working in accordance with their personal intuition and not concerned with any pre-established principles or theories.” [34]
--------------------------------------
1 William Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism (New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1989), 44-45.
2 Douglas Cooper, Cubist Epoch (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1971).
3 Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, 45.
4 John Golding, Cubism: A History & an Analysis 1907-1914, 2nd ed. (Boston, Massachusetts: Boston Book & Art Shop, 1968), 80.
5 Michael Brenson, "Picasso and Braque, Brothers in Cubism," New York Times, September 22, 1989 1989.
6 Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, 17.
7 Golding, Cubism: A History & an Analysis 1907-1914, 59.
8 Cooper, Cubist Epoch, 23.
9 Christopher Lyon, "A Shared Vision an Introduction To "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism"," MoMA 2, no. 2 (1989): 11.
10 Nicole Worms de Romilly and Jean Laude, Braque: Cubism 1907-1914, vol. 7, Catalogue Raisonne of Braque's Work (Paris: Maeght Editeur, 1982), 57.
11 Alex Danchev, Georges Braque: A Life (New York, New York: Arcade Publishing, Inc., 2005), 40.
12 Karen Wilkin, Georges Braque, ed. Nancy Grub, vol. 14, Modern Masters (New York: Abbeville Press, 1991), 29.
13 Douglas Cooper and Gary Tinterow, The Essential Cubism 1907-1920 (New York, New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1984), 12.
14 Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, 52.
15 Wilkin, Georges Braque, 32.
16 Maly and Dietfried Gerhardus, Cubism and Futurism (New York, New York: E.P.Dutton, 1979), 42.
17 Cooper and Tinterow, The Essential Cubism 1907-1920, 38.
18 Wilkin, Georges Braque, 32.
19 Danchev, Georges Braque: A Life.
20 "A Discussion About Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism with Bernice Rose and Arne Glimcher ", in Charlie Rose (2007).
21 Ibid.
22 Lyon, "A Shared Vision an Introduction To "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism"."
23 Brenson, "Picasso and Braque, Brothers in Cubism."
24 Danchev, Georges Braque: A Life, 69.
25 Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism.
26 Cooper, Cubist Epoch.
27 Golding, Cubism: A History & an Analysis 1907-1914, 71.
28 Danchev, Georges Braque: A Life.
29 Lyon, "A Shared Vision an Introduction To "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism"," 11.
30 Golding, Cubism: A History & an Analysis 1907-1914, 95.
31 Robert Rosenblum, Cubism and Twentieth-Century Art, 2nd ed. (New York, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1976), 66.
32 Ibid.
33 Wilkin, Georges Braque, 7.
34 Cooper and Tinterow, The Essential Cubism 1907-1920, 11.
Illustrations [linked in the text]
Works Cited
Brenson, Michael. "Picasso and Braque, Brothers in Cubism." New York Times, September 22, 1989 1989.
Cooper, Douglas. Cubist Epoch. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1971.
Cooper, Douglas, and Gary Tinterow. The Essential Cubism 1907-1920. New York, New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1984.
Danchev, Alex. Georges Braque: A Life. New York, New York: Arcade Publishing, Inc., 2005.
"A Discussion About Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism with Bernice Rose and Arne Glimcher ". In Charlie Rose, 25:23, 2007.
Gerhardus, Maly and Dietfried. Cubism and Futurism. New York, New York: E.P.Dutton, 1979.
Golding, John. Cubism: A History & an Analysis 1907-1914. 2nd ed. Boston, Massachusetts: Boston Book & Art Shop, 1968.
Lyon, Christopher. "A Shared Vision an Introduction To "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism"." MoMA 2, no. 2 (1989): 7-13.
Rosenblum, Robert. Cubism and Twentieth-Century Art. 2nd ed. New York, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1976.
Rubin, William. Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism. New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1989.
Wilkin, Karen. Georges Braque. Edited by Nancy Grub. Vol. 14, Modern Masters. New York: Abbeville Press, 1991.
Worms de Romilly, Nicole, and Jean Laude. Braque: Cubism 1907-1914. Vol. 7, Catalogue Raisonne of Braque's Work. Paris: Maeght Editeur, 1982.
Bibliography
"A Discussion About Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism with Bernice Rose and Arne Glimcher ". In Charlie Rose, 25:23, 2007.
"Georges Braque, Le Violoncelle." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 56, no. 2 (1969): 55-62.
Brenson, Michael. "Picasso and Braque, Brothers in Cubism." New York Times, September 22, 1989 1989.
Cooper, Douglas. Cubist Epoch. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1971.
Cooper, Douglas, and Gary Tinterow. The Essential Cubism 1907-1920. New York, New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1984.
Danchev, Alex. Georges Braque: A Life. New York, New York: Arcade Publishing, Inc., 2005.
Fry, Edward F. "Cubism 1907-1908: An Early Eyewitness Account." The Art Bulletin 48, no. 1 (1966): 70-73.
Gerhardus, Maly and Dietfried. Cubism and Futurism. New York, New York: E.P.Dutton, 1979.
Golding, John. Cubism: A History & an Analysis 1907-1914. 2nd ed. Boston, Massachusetts: Boston Book & Art Shop, 1968.
Heller, Nancy G. Why a Painting Is Like a Pizza. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Kennedy, Randy. "When Picasso and Braque Went to the Movies." New York Times, 4-15-2007 2007.
Lyon, Christopher. "A Shared Vision an Introduction To "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism"." MoMA 2, no. 2 (1989): 7-13.
McCully, Marilyn, ed. Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1997.
Rosenblum, Robert. Cubism and Twentieth-Century Art. 2nd ed. New York, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1976.
Rubin, William. Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism. New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1989.
Smith, Roberta. "Art in Review; Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism." New York Times, 6-1-2007 2007.
Wilkin, Karen. Georges Braque. Edited by Nancy Grub. Vol. 14, Modern Masters. New York: Abbeville Press, 1991.
Worms de Romilly, Nicole, and Jean Laude. Braque: Cubism 1907-1914. Vol. 7, Catalogue Raisonne of Braque's Work. Paris: Maeght Editeur, 1982.
So that's a research paper in, like, what, three days? /o\ I had to pretty much start over from scratch after the draft I sent in. Now I only have one more discussion to post and I am DONE with this class. And pretty much done with art history! \o/