Lot Essay
Returning to painting in 1917 after suffering a severe injury in WWI, Georges Braque revisited many of the Cubist formal concerns which he pioneered with Pablo Picasso from 1907 to 1914; in this phase of his career, however, the strict logic and experimental impetus of Cubism becomes tempered by a stronger concern for symmetry and pictorial harmony, rendering images such as Guitare, compotier, partition softer, more fluid, as well as less abstract, than their earlier Cubist counterparts:
Beginning in mid-1918, Braque worked on a much larger scale than before and concentrated on still-life subjects. He found a freer and more masterly way of handling form and space in compositions, which were no longer executed in a strictly 'Synthetic' Cubist style, but were characterized by large forms, and overall looseness and a rich, more varied palette of colors used, as a rule, descriptively. This reveals an attempt on the part of Braque to 'humanize' his style, so that although the forms are still Cubist in derivation, they correspond more nearly with known appearances" (D. Cooper and G. Tinterow, The Essential Cubism 1907-1920, London, 1983, p. 118).
Despite the more poetic intentions of the works, Braque continued to perceive formal issues of space and spatial relationships as crucial to his art. He writes:
The space between seems to me to be as essential an element as what they call the object: The subject matter consists precisely of the relationship between these objects and between the object and the intervening spaces. How can I say what the picture is of when relationships are always things that change? (G. Braque, quoted in Georges Braque: Still Life and Work, New York, 1988, p. 154)
In Guitare, compotier, partition, these concerns emerge in his treatment of the spatial relationships between the assembled objects of the still life. Outlines and deep shading are employed to break the composition into layers of sharply edged planes which lie parallel to the picture's surface. Moreover, Braque elides the space between disparate elements--the sheet music and guitar, for instance--while shattering into separate planes a seemingly continuous object. The strong contrast of light and dark, highly decorated surfaces and unity of composition in Guitare, compotier, partition secure Braque's status as a master of the still-life genre.
Beginning in mid-1918, Braque worked on a much larger scale than before and concentrated on still-life subjects. He found a freer and more masterly way of handling form and space in compositions, which were no longer executed in a strictly 'Synthetic' Cubist style, but were characterized by large forms, and overall looseness and a rich, more varied palette of colors used, as a rule, descriptively. This reveals an attempt on the part of Braque to 'humanize' his style, so that although the forms are still Cubist in derivation, they correspond more nearly with known appearances" (D. Cooper and G. Tinterow, The Essential Cubism 1907-1920, London, 1983, p. 118).
Despite the more poetic intentions of the works, Braque continued to perceive formal issues of space and spatial relationships as crucial to his art. He writes:
The space between seems to me to be as essential an element as what they call the object: The subject matter consists precisely of the relationship between these objects and between the object and the intervening spaces. How can I say what the picture is of when relationships are always things that change? (G. Braque, quoted in Georges Braque: Still Life and Work, New York, 1988, p. 154)
In Guitare, compotier, partition, these concerns emerge in his treatment of the spatial relationships between the assembled objects of the still life. Outlines and deep shading are employed to break the composition into layers of sharply edged planes which lie parallel to the picture's surface. Moreover, Braque elides the space between disparate elements--the sheet music and guitar, for instance--while shattering into separate planes a seemingly continuous object. The strong contrast of light and dark, highly decorated surfaces and unity of composition in Guitare, compotier, partition secure Braque's status as a master of the still-life genre.