喬治·布拉克

Daniel Henry Kahnweiler, Paris (acquired from the artist. Sold: 4e vente Kahnweiler, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 7th-8th May 1923, lot 112)
Earl Horter, Philadelphia (acquired by 1934)
Elizabeth Lentz Horter, Philadelphia (acquired from the above in 1940)
Galerie Sami Tarica, Paris (acquired by the early 1970s)
Galerie Alfred Schmela, Düsseldorf
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1982

Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Collection of Earl Horter, 1934
Chicago, The Arts Club of Chicago, Modern Paintings from the Collection of Mr. Earl Horter of Philadelphia, 1934, no. 3
Cologne, Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle, Kubismus: Künstler, Themen, Werke, 1907-1920, 1982, no. 11, illustrated in the catalogue (as dating from 1912-13)
Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Mad for Modernism: Earl Horter and his Collection, 1999, no. 10, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Galerie Kahnweiler archive, photo no. 1110
George Isarlov, Georges Braque, Paris, 1932, no. 157, listed p. 18
Malcolm Gee, Dealers, Critics and Collectors of Modern Painting, New York & London, 1981, Appendix F, listed p. 50
Nicole Worms de Romilly & Jean Laude, Braque, Le Cubisme, fin 1907-1914, Paris, 1982, no. 186, illustrated p. 203

The canvas is unlined and there is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. This work is in very good original condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although slightly less warm in the original.
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Violon of 1913 is an important example of the evolution of Synthetic Cubism in Braque’s art. The technique of papier collé, first developed by Braque and Picasso towards the end of 1912, transformed the pictorial conceptions which had hitherto guided the two artists during the evolution of Cubism. Whilst previously they analysed and dissected objects breaking them down into sets of geometric forms, in their works of 1913-14 they found they could create their own pictorial reality and build a composition through a synthesis of various elements. Although the two artists did not work together, throughout the Cubist epoch they maintained an intense dialogue guided by a friendly rivalry in which each painter endeavoured to surpass the other one in their creativity and invention. Violon is a notable example of this fervent innovation and of a fruitful and ground-breaking artistic dialogue.

 

In his paintings of 1913, Braque began turning away from the hermetic and complex structures of Analytic Cubism, in favour of simpler and flatter forms that characterised Synthetic Cubism. Whilst he retained the genre of still-life as his preferred subject matter, choosing the already familiar objects such as musical instruments, bottle, glass and newspapers, the artist’s approach to depicting these elements was radically different. In his Synthetic Cubist works Braque focused on the composition as a whole, building it up from simplified forms which overlap and interact in ways that suggest the shapes of everyday objects. The complex, multiple viewpoints of Analytic Cubism were abandoned for simpler, more purely two-dimensional shapes emphasising the flatness of the canvas, and Violon demonstrates how the invention of papier collé paved the way towards this new painterly idiom. Whilst in papier collé pieces of flat paper were literally pasted onto the surface of the picture, oil paintings take this notion a step further by building a composition out of rectilinear shapes which appear to be pasted onto the canvas, such as the trompe-l’œil wooden grain motif signifying the material of the violin in the present composition.
 

Douglas Cooper explained the method that Braque developed during this period: ‘Braque, rather more than Picasso, concentrated on elaborating the structural notation within each picture, on synthesizing and suggesting the forms of objects rather than showing their different aspects, and on representing the relationships between objects […] and the space around them. Space was thus ‘materialized’ instead of being invoked by illusion. Light was directed at will to give relief where needed, and the principle of a single viewpoint was wholly abandoned’ (D. Cooper, The Essential Cubism, London, 1983, p. 72).