GEORGES BRAQUE, Baigneuse II, 1930–1931

This painting – which follows on from Braque’s Baigneuse (sur les galets) of 1929 – contains several noteworthy features. The female nude in it appears distorted and fragmented, with the artist presenting her both from a side view (her body offers us this) and a frontal view (with her head on the left-hand side). There is hardly any meaningful distinction between the background and the shape representing the woman. Both angular and curved forms fill the entire canvas: the curves on the towel echo those of the bather’s body, but they could also bring to mind the curves of waves. Meanwhile, the meeting point of the white oval and the curved lines around it could be evoking certain Cubist motifs, such as the guitar or the mandolin.

The whole work is both geometrically depicted and front facing: Braque does away with linear perspective here. Multiple, consecutive points of view are compressed onto the canvas’ flat two-dimensional structure. With visible brush strokes, the artist’s own efforts remain discernible on the painting through his employment of dotted and curved lines. The colour here, just as in the first Baigneuse, almost becomes a camaïeu, which then contains some more chromatic touches; the (light) blue and khaki green bring this aspect to the canvas. As for the texture, the work’s thickness varies depending on what the artist is focussing on; as such, the bottom of the canvas contains more textural and material effects. The horizontal structure of the painting echoes the bather’s own horizontality, as she lies on what appears to be a towel.

This work is quite clearly reminiscent of the earlier periods of Analytical and Synthetic Cubism. In it, the figure is no longer a completely separate entity from the background – which renders it totally at odds with the style of painting in Classical and Academic art.

Georges Braque’s Post Cubist Masterpieces, Anthem Edition, 2024.