Georges Directs

Georges Directs , birth with Argenteuil the May 13rd 1882 - Died in Paris the August 31st 1963. Painter and sculptor, it was, with Pablo Picasso, one of the initiators of the Cubisme.

Biography

Georges Directs: “I flee my similar, in very similar there is a double. ”

Georges Braque grows within a family of craftsmen. He passes his youth to the Havre and studies with the École of the Art schools of 1897 with 1899 directed by Charles Lhuillier. It become acquainted there with Othon Friesz. Its first formation as painter decorator, it owes it with his/her father, Charles Braque, contractor-painter out of building.

To Paris, it follows the courses of a Master decorator and obtains his certificate of craft industry in 1901. The following year, it enters to the Humbert academy which it attends until in 1904. It is there that it meets Marie Laurencin and Francis Picabia.

Of Fauvisme to the cubism

It paints its first works under the influence of the Impressionnisme until it discovers with the Living room of Fall of 1905 the fabrics of Henri Matisse and of André Derain. Then an artistic collaboration with Othon Friesz begins with which it makes a stay in Antwerp, then the following year with Estaque (Rhone delta) from where it brings back fawn-coloured tables to the pure colors and the geometrical compositions. (“ Memories of Antwerp ”). Its tables are exposed in March 1906 with the Salon of independent the.

In 1907, capital year for him, it is marked by the exposure of tables of Paul Cézanne to the Living room of Fall, a first for the painter inhabitant of Aix one year after his death. It starts to work out a new system of representation while being based on simplification and the geometrization of the forms and the setting flat of the prospect. Then it meets Pablo Picasso which paints then “ the Young ladies of Avignon ”. It is for him a revelation. In agreement with these two influences and its interest for the primitive art, its pictorial orientation is completely upset. Then it paints, of December 1907 in June 1908, “ Large naked the ” in which it represents volumes by the broad ones hatches encircled of black.

The period cubist

During the exposure of its fabrics to the Kahnweiler gallery, the critic Louis Vauxcelles compares his painting with an accumulation of small cubes . The word is said, of 1909 with 1912, Braque and Picasso works out the theories of the cubism. The artist any more will not seek to copy nature but to break up it into masses to recompose it. He will represent the model according to several points of view, but in only one still image (as if the painter turned around the model to paint integrality of it). Thus a multiplication of the facets will take place. The forms then will be géométrisées and simplified as well as the colors which will be mainly camaieu of gray and the brown ones. It is about an always figurative but complex painting. In parallel, Georges Braque continues his painting of landscapes influenced by Cézanne, landscapes which it ends up giving up for died natures for which it is very known ( Guitare and Compotier in 1909). He also painted some figures like Torse of woman in 1911.

In 1911, it realizes that its painting moves away too much from the model. Its painting tends towards the abstraction and that displeases to him. To join again with reality, it innovates with the direct introduction into its painting of objects of reality. In the Portuguese , it adds letters and figures painted to the stencil key set. Then it will make matter imitations in particular in Femme with the guitar in 1913. Then it also utilizes in painting the joining of wallpapers, newspapers, posters. This technique is called stuck papers . It is now rather question of paper flat tints that of accumulation of volumes, it is the synthetic phase of the Cubism.

Return towards reality

The First World War stops the close cooperation with Picasso.
In 1914, Georges Braque is mobilized. In 1915, it is seriously wounded. It can resume its work only in 1917. It continues its work from the same point of view of the cubism, by making it evolve to less angular forms and let us tons more coloured, a little closer to reality. It will paint, according to this new more traditional manner, as of 1918, of the series of pedestal tables, and chimneys of 1922 with 1927. It makes a kind of " return to the ordre" while painting of Canéphores evoking the carrying ones offerings of Greek Antiquity. Direct works with greens, the brown ones and blacks until in 1928 where the colors reappear and the matter becomes more fluid. Towards 1930, it carries out several series: bathers, Beaches, Cliffs. Then until 1938, it will paint much of decorative dead nature like the pink Nappe (1933), the Yellow Tablecloth (1935).

Deepening

In 1945, reached of a serious disease, it must stop painting during several months. The war is for G. Directs synonymous with austerity and overwhelming pressure. Of 1949 with 1956, it composes “the Workshops” , eight fabrics with tons slightly funeral (with the extinct colors). They are the fruits of research, memories and evolutions of the painter. These works are crowning many years of unconditional work . Already appeared in this work, the topic of the bird to the very schematized form will be very present. It is about a message addressed to his friend Laurens, deceased.

the painter completes also many work of decoration as the sculpture of the door of the gate vault of the church of Assy in 1948 or, of 1952 with 1953, the decoration of the ceiling of the Etruscan room of the Musée of Louvre on the topic of the bird. He became thus the first painter exposed to the Louvre of alive sound. One owes him also the creation of the five stained glasses of the vault of Varengeville-on-Sea in 1956.

Georges Braque dies in Paris on August 31st 1963 at the top of brilliant and glorious career. He is buried with the marine cemetery of Varengeville-on-Sea.

Some works

the Guitar: “Statue of terror” , Classified in the cubism (November 1913) - to see work
the Large naked (1907)
" the Portuguese " (1911), oil on fabric 116,5x81,5cm, Basle, Kunstmuseum
" Cut with Fruits and Glass " (1912), stuck charcoal and papers, 62x44,5cm, coll.part
" Estaque" (1908), oil on fabric, 60,3x50,2cm, NR there, the Museum off Modern Art

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