GEORGES BRAQUE, Poire, Pomme et Couteau

This 1924 oil painting is an intimate work focused on several elements, the principal subject being still life – which, of course, evokes Cubist imagery.

The work is plain, even austere: three ‘figures’ sit dissociated from the background, in spite of their clear interaction with it, through Braque’s colours and texture. These three figures – the pear, apple and knife – are reduced down to their bare bones. Even if Braque is not returning to the fragmented representation of Analytical Cubism here, it is also not a case of Braque turning to a mimetic style, one which he elsewhere used only very rarely, even at the outset of his career.

The piece’s composition emphasises the horizontality of its setup, reinforced by the horizontal line separating the two block colours in the background. The knife inserts one diagonal, whilst the two lined-up pieces of fruit form another, in the opposite direction.

The artistic evolution of Cubism is totally integrated here; particularly, we see a reduction in perspective: the subjects give the impression of being compressed into the foreground. This front-facing nature is even clearer given how the flatness of the work’s materiality is accentuated by the sand beneath the canvas’ surface. The depiction of a knife would also typically, in still life, subtly indicate a hollowing out of the space; instead, in this work, it creates a front-facing, shallow diagonal.

The oil painting’s colours are both understated and restrained: greys, yellows, blacks and browns, as well as their various shades, run across the entire surface of the canvas, creating marked contrasts. The pear’s cross-section forms a flat, milky-white area, cutting sharply against all the darker colours on the canvas. Several black shadows – such as those around the fruit – also accent the piece’s dark, deep quality. Finally, we notice how the composition becomes centrally focussed, given both the consistent use of black and dark grey contouring to underscore the objects’ outlines and the uniformity of certain background colours.

Although this era of Braque’s work is often seen as more ‘Classical’ than the Cubist period, this painting certainly contains all the artistic features of a truly modern style.

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