The French artist Georges Braque is rightfully considered the founder of the modernist direction of painting - cubism. Although, according to art historians, the first cubists were Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso. However, Braque has the most works written in this manner.
Georges Braque did not limit his work to painting and graphics. The artist was engaged in the creation of stained glass; sophisticated and expressive sculpture that resonated with Greek archaic; worked as a decorator in the theater; made magnificent jewelry that fashionistas of the time wore with pleasure; He also mastered many techniques of applied art.
Biography
The future artist was born in 1882 in the suburbs of Paris - Argenteuil. This place was once glorified by the Impressionists. The Georges family owned an interior workshop - was engaged in decoration. From an early age, his father taught him his craft, taught him to work as a decorator and to understand the aesthetics of residential premises. And when his son grew up, the head of the family sent him to receive the education of a decorator in Le Havre. Later, the young master was still studying at the Paris School of Fine Arts.
It was this educational institution that helped him get acquainted with new trends in painting. Georges was especially attracted to the work of Matisse, and he became friends with the circle of “Fauvists”. In that period of his life, he constantly painted landscapes that were filled with the southern sun and the bright colors of Provence - they seemed to be saturated with the riot of nature in the south of France. These were very decorative works, but there were already notes of a new direction - Cubism, because the clarity of the composition distinguished these landscapes from paintings by the Fauvists.
Cubism
A little later, Marriage became interested in the art of Cezanne and Picasso, which led to a noticeable change in the artist's style. The former fluid forms on his canvases were replaced by powerful geometric volumes; bright colors became muffled: there were yellowish-ocher, greenish and gray-blue tones, like Cezanne's.
A funny case is connected with the picture of the Braque “Houses in Estate”: when the famous artist Matisse saw it, he exclaimed: “What are these cubes?” Hence the name of the direction in painting - “cubism”, which was popular in the XX century.
Since 1910, the artist has slightly changed the style of writing: his cubes are becoming smaller, their faces fill the entire canvas, have different shapes and are fantastically placed on the canvas. This was no longer an image of an object - rather, in his work, Marriage sought to convey a certain image, symbol, his idea of the object.
These were very original, but completely divorced from reality plots with the free play of color planes, contours, various objects, inscriptions. Marriage often used decorative effects that were completely new for painting at that time, which created a sense of life and rhythm of the big city.
