Georges Braque - BALANCE ET POISSON

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Georges Braque
1882 - 1963
BALANCE ET POISSON
Signed G Braque (lower left)
Oil on canvas
16 3/4 by 28 3/4 in.
42.6 by 73 cm
Painted in 1941 
The still life was a theme to which Braque returned consistently throughout his long and productive career. In every phase, beginning with the Fauve period and culminating in the majestic interiors of his last years, Braque found the arrangement of a limited number of objects on a table-top or in an interior to be the most appropriate subject for his investigations of the formal and tactile qualities of painting. In the decades following the invention of Cubism, Braque continued to refine and re-examine the expressive possibilities of his still lifes, always creating innovative ways to represent common objects.   
Balance et poisson epitomizes the "transparent" aesthetic that defined Braque's work in the 1930s. Elements of the composition overlap with varying degrees of transparency, creating an illusion of recession and depth. The dimensionality of the picture is further enhanced by Braque's choice of color; he limits his palette in a manner that focuses the eye on the yellow of the scales at the center of the panel. Still lifes feature prominently in Braque's and Picasso's early Synthetic works and were a link with high Baroque still lifes, such as those painted by Caravaggio. Braque's historical appropriations and experiments with formal transparency would have a profound effect on the work of his fellow painters, most notably in Picasso's still lifes painted in the 1920s and 30s.

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