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Lot Essay
Braque's early career as an artist was spent under the influence of Cèzanne, the progenitor of Fauvism and Cubism. His initial interest was directed towards the Fauvists' use of saturated colour, but by 1907 he was investigating the structural side of Cèzanne's legacy. It was this exploration of the way in which Cèzanne organised space that led directly to the development of Cubism, and an important part of this exploration was undertaken in a series of ten drypoints executed between 1907 and 1913.
The journey into the unknown was not a solitary expedition, however. In 1906 Braque met the young Picasso, not long settled in Paris, and, in the famous phrase, like mountaineers roped together the two set about demolishing many of the conventions of Western art that had held sway since the Renaissance.
'Their works violated the rules of single-point perspective and destroyed the physical integrity of the objects they represented. The two artists introduced signs and symbols and references to non-art materials such as newspaper clippings, cloth and decorative wallpaper into their works. They …mixed multiple styles and modes without reard to traditional western ideals of unity and consistency.'
[Daniel Schulman, Graphic Modernism: Selections from the Francey and Dr Martin L. Gecht Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2003]
Several of the innovations Braque brought to the Cubist enterprise are apparent in lots 145, 146 and 147: his tongue-in-cheek nod to art's mixture of reality and illusion with the trompe l'oeil nail in Job, for example and the areas of faux bois in Bass, evoking the panelling of a plush bar. '…With its magnificent variety of marks, Bass is one of Braque's most fascinating and richly allusive prints.' (ibid.)
The journey into the unknown was not a solitary expedition, however. In 1906 Braque met the young Picasso, not long settled in Paris, and, in the famous phrase, like mountaineers roped together the two set about demolishing many of the conventions of Western art that had held sway since the Renaissance.
'Their works violated the rules of single-point perspective and destroyed the physical integrity of the objects they represented. The two artists introduced signs and symbols and references to non-art materials such as newspaper clippings, cloth and decorative wallpaper into their works. They …mixed multiple styles and modes without reard to traditional western ideals of unity and consistency.'
[Daniel Schulman, Graphic Modernism: Selections from the Francey and Dr Martin L. Gecht Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2003]
Several of the innovations Braque brought to the Cubist enterprise are apparent in lots 145, 146 and 147: his tongue-in-cheek nod to art's mixture of reality and illusion with the trompe l'oeil nail in Job, for example and the areas of faux bois in Bass, evoking the panelling of a plush bar. '…With its magnificent variety of marks, Bass is one of Braque's most fascinating and richly allusive prints.' (ibid.)