The museum of modern art also known as the MoMa is hands down one of my favorite museums to attend in NYC . Upon my visit to the MoMa I took a closer look at the fifth floor which carried pieces of work from the late 19th to early 20th century. There in sight I took notice and analyzed Georges Braque, Man with a Guitar. Braque was a renowned 20th century french painter who played a major role in the development of cubism. He and colleague Pablo Picasso were heavily associated with each other, even though the fame of Picasso was far superior than Braque.
Braque’s earliest work were far more expressional and followed the Fauve movement with other brilliant painters such Henri Matisse and Andre Derain. His interest and work led to what is known as cubism through his curiosity in geometry and unorthodox view on perspective. Cubism was very experimental and in the early 20th century revolutionized paintings and sculptures by using monochromatic colors and abstract patterns.
In Man with a Guitar you can’t help but look and view it slowly as you concentrate on every detail in the painting. There are lines and shading used very unconventionally creating a sense of structure and texture through fragmentation, through this style it made his work seem both flat yet three dimensional. He wanted to create a new representation in terms of paintings and its not necessarily meant to be abstract but construct a new approach to on how to create and view them.
By pin pointing recognizable details you can make out the profile of a man in the painting as well as a sound hole of the instrument if you look carefully. Cubism was breaking barriers within paintings as we were starting to view them from a new direction like that of a sculpture. Now with this technique and movement in the arts it very much coincides with that of modernism. It shows that art is not just seen or interpreted by our eyes but our minds as well, it ruptures ways to make sense of a picture
Majority of his work in cubism resemble one another based on the choice of monochromatic grays and fragmentation of shape. I find it fascinating how one can look at an image but have no idea what we’re exactly looking at until we read the caption of so called work. Pieces and work like these capture my eye as you end up in a gaze trying to capture every detail and in ways solve this elaborate take on art. Picasso who also used cubism had a larger sense of color in his work so to see the difference yet commonality between both in cubism is very interesting. To believe at first glance this came across as an abstract painting is actually much vast to a greater way of thinking and approach to painting in itself.
Christian – Thanks for sharing your thoughts about Braque and about Cubism. I think the idea that Braque is thinking about painting in the way one might think about sculpture is particularly helpful in making sense of this work. It also reminds me that fragmentation is a recurring theme in Modernism. It’s hard to imagine how confusing and almost shocking works like this were considered when they were first exhibited!