GEORGES BRAQUE, Oiseau et Feuillage

Braque’s use of birds as a theme came from the Ateliers series, going on to become an archetypal subject in his paintings, so much so that he was commissioned to paint such a piece onto the ceiling of the Salle Étrusque at the Louvre in 1955. You can now go and admire Braque’s beautiful blue birds there, in Paris.

‘Not being particularly fussed with symbolism – he was profoundly formalist - Braque brought birds back into his painting, inspired by seeing them flying in the Camargue.’1 For Braque, birds cannot be reduced to a simple metaphor for liberty or some omen or message from above.

That formulation affords too much importance to the ‘meaning’ around the process involved with his compositions. For this painter, before being symbolic of higher planes of being or of the unknown awoken in men by them, paintings are, first and foremost, artistic realities, made up of texture, material, colour and brush strokes.

This new theme for Braque appeared alongside a new painting style: his strokes are very visible on the canvas and accentuate the varying thicknesses in texture of the forms and the background. The bird’s body is quite distinct, despite being sketched in very abstract form. The amalgamation of leaves next to the bird represents an extremely compact and enigmatic artistic element. Texture is critical within it, coming

close to Expressionism or reminding us of certain Jean Dubuffet works (particularly those in his Texturologies). This part of the painting is characterised by firm strokes, saturated, dark colours and obvious thickness. In Oiseau et feuillage, Braque affords the textural elements of the work the space to be seen. So, overall, it is made to look as if the artist’s use of material and colour itself creates the image of the leaves; it is as if the signifier (the texture, colour, form and style) has taken precedence over the very meaning (the theme) or as if the texture (in this specific part of the painting) is more important than the representation of the object itself. Paradoxically, this artistic amalgamation – the foliage – may also evoke something else entirely; when the viewer focuses on it, an object very different to the bunch of leaves appears: a fish. Its eyes, nose and mouth rise up from within the dark, startling foliage around it.

Although the depiction of a bird and the pale blue colouring behind it are suggestive of the sky, the surface of this painting is actually more indicative of thick, earth-bound matter. The artist does not aim to use lightness, fluidity or transience to bring the sky to mind here, but rather calls on a consistent, compact texture in order to do so.

This painting is both surprising and innovative, not just as a result of its subject matter but (more so) through the way that it is painted.

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