Georges BraqueFrench, 1882–1963Little Harbor in Normandy
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Yes, receiving visitors
Art Institute of Chicago
Room391Chicago, United States
On public display.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum's own collection data
About the painting
In early 1908, Georges Braque began an artistic collaboration with Pablo Picasso. From 1909 until Braque was mobilized for World War I, they worked in creative dialogue, breaking down and reformulating the representation of objects and their structure. In doing so, they pioneered one of the most radical artistic revolutions of the twentieth century, Cubism. Little Harbor in Normandy is the first fully realized example of Braque’s early Cubist style. He described the English Channel coast in severe geometries and a sober palette, reduced in range and intensity to pale shades of color. His compressed treatment of space and use of a shifting perspective seems to propel the two sailboats forward to the front edges of the picture. To further energize the scene, the artist added a fringe of whitecaps to the sea and dashes of clouds across the sky.
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His repetitive, striated modeling of form, inspired by his study of the art of Paul Cézanne, increased the rigid tension of this canvas. Documentation suggests that Little Harbor in Normandy was exhibited in Paris in March 1909 at the Salon des Indépendants, making this painting the first major Cubist work to be shown in such a prominent venue.
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Particulars
- Accession number
- 1970.98
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago: the museum's own open data · fetched 8 days ago
- Image: Art Institute of Chicago — © the artist or rights holder
Meanwhile, in the life of Georges Braque
The whole lifeMay 1907
Success at the Salon des Indépendants
In May 1907 Braque successfully exhibited Fauvist works at the Salon des Indépendants.
September 1907
The Cézanne retrospective changes his course
The large, museum-like retrospective at the Salon d'Automne of Paul Cézanne, who had died in 1906, deeply affected the Paris avant-garde and led to the advent of Cubism; under its influence Braque's style began a slow evolution.
October – November 1907
Meets Pablo Picasso
In the autumn of 1907 Braque visited Picasso's studio, and after the meeting sharply changed his manner, striving for economy of means and geometric forms (another view holds that the encounter rather accelerated and intensified his pursuit of Cézanne's ideas).
14 November 1908
Exhibition at Kahnweiler's and Vauxcelles's “cubes”
Reviewing Braque's exhibition at Kahnweiler's gallery, the critic Louis Vauxcelles called him a daring man who despises form, “reducing everything, places and figures and houses, to geometric schemas, to cubes”.
1909–1912
Creates Cubism together with Picasso
From 1909 to 1912 (other accounts say from as early as 1908) Braque worked with Picasso on the theoretical foundations of Cubism and became one of the movement's founders; for many years their paintings of the period were indistinguishable. Braque likened their partnership to being roped together on a mountain.
summer 1911
Summer in Céret, side by side with Picasso
The summer of 1911 was decisive for Cubism: Braque and Picasso painted side by side in Céret in the French Pyrenees, and their canvases of that time are hard, sometimes virtually impossible, to tell apart.
