braque, fruit dish and glass notes Flashcards
year
1912
medium
papier collé (a collage made of pasted papers)
he noticed a roll of faux bois wallpaper displayed in a shop window. Braque waited until Picasso de-parted for Paris before incorporating pieces of the mechanically printed, fake wood grain paper into a series of charcoal drawings.
where was it produced
produced in September 1912 during an extended stay with Picasso in Sorgues in the south-east of France. (near Avignon)
phase of cubism
Fruit Dish and Glass falls in the third (and final) phase of Cubism, which we call the Synthetic phase.
Syntheic Cubism constructs an image from many diverse components. Fruit Dish and Glass combines faux bois wallpaper with a charcoal drawing of a still life.
subject and genre
still life
*Subject matter: is a glass bowl, pears, and grapes, between what looks like a dish and a wine glass, or perhaps a candlestick; faux bois elements indicate walls and table top
*Lettering spelling out ALE and BAR suggests the still-life is situated in the familiar world of the cafe
space
-spatial relations signified by overlapping
-by using flat paper pasted onto a flat surface, all possibility of illusionistic space is eliminated
-faux bois elements act as a foreground, the background, or both (see how in some places the charcoal drawing overlaps the pieces of wallpaper)
-texture of background brings it forward making perception of space even more difficult
*Rather than space, now the emphasis is on digesting multiple layers of information and shapes
texture
*Braque also adds texture, applying a mix of sand and gesso (thin paint-like plaster) to the background
*This texture brings the background forward, making it more difficult to interpret the perspective
colour
*The faux bois used allows Braque to incorporate colour into an otherwise monochrome composition (collage in general was a useful way for Braque and Picasso to reintroduce colour into their works, which had become monochromatic during the Analytical phase of Cubism)
*The use of the faux bois also creates a degree of balanced visual harmony
collage and text
*Faux bois wallpaper in upper half signifies either the paper itself as wallpaper (e.g. as found in cheap working class cafes) or as wood panelling in a somewhat higher class establishment
*The same paper below signifies the table upon which the fruit dish with grapes and wineglass sit
*The words BAR and ALE locate the still life definitively in a public cafe as opposed to private space
paper sculpture context
*Braque had in 1911 started creating paper sculptures (this development played an important role in encouraging him to cut, shape and paint paper)
*In the May of 1912 Picasso had created the first Cubist collage
*This work inspired Braque and he then refined Picasso’s “invention” of collage by limiting the past-ed-on elements to pieces of paper: this kind of collage is called papier collé
the faux bois story
One day, while wandering around the nearby city of Avignon, Braque noticed a roll of faux bois wall-paper displayed in a shop window. Braque waited until Picasso departed for Paris before incorporat-ing pieces of the mechanically printed, fake wood grain paper into a series of charcoal drawings:
Artistic influence on Braque: techniques learned as a painter/ decorator of houses
*Braque had grown up in a family of highly-skilled house painters
*At 17 he had been apprenticed to a painter-decorator in Paris
*In this job he learned to imitate textured surfaces such as woodgrain (faux bois) and marble on a flat surface by using a special trade tool
how was the practice of collage unique
It represented a deliberate rejection of traditional and stable materials of which painting had been made since the Renaissance (oil paint on canvas)
In their use of “everyday” materials Braque and Picasso question and revise the criteria for artistic media
The use of glue - influenced by Braque’s early training as a house decorator - equally defied tradi-tional notions of the production of high art
oil paint was associated with the masculine and cutting and sticking with the domestic feminine-b they challenge the convention of academic codes of art
what was synthetic cubism
*In both philosophy and science the term “synthetic” usually contrasts with analytic
*The style of synthetic Cubism contrasts with the style of analytical Cubism
influence of the semiotics
*At the turn of the century linguists in Europe had begun to wonder what language really was, lead-ing to a new appreciation of the importance of structures and codes to linguistic meaning
*These ideas became the basis of the study of signs known as semiotics
*Semiotics is “the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation”.
*so a semiotic reading of Fruit Dish and Glass would suggest that the work is made up of a series of signs and codes
who founded semiotics
Ferdinand de Saussure
Founded semiotics
