Georges Braque Quotes

Georges Braque was a major 20th-century French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most important contributions to the history of art were in his alliance with Fauvism from 1905, and the role he played in the development of Cubism. Braque's work between 1908 and 1912 is closely associated with that of his colleague Pablo Picasso. Their respective Cubist works were indistinguishable for many years, yet the quiet nature of Braque was partially eclipsed by the fame and notoriety of Picasso. Wikipedia  

✵ 13. May 1882 – 31. August 1963
Georges Braque photo
Georges Braque: 43   quotes 2   likes

Famous Georges Braque Quotes

“Evidence exhausts the truth.”

as quoted in Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde, ed. Charles Juliet, First Dalkey Archive edition, 2009, London and Champaign pp. 60-61
posthumous quotes

“Whatever is valuable in painting is precisely what one is incapable of talking about.”

two quotes by Braque, in 'Les Problèmes de la Peinture', interview with Gaston Diehl Paris 1945
1921 - 1945

“Whatever is in common is true; but likeness is false. Trouillebert's work bears a likeness to that of Corot, but they have nothing in common.”

Braque admired Corot and frequently used Corot's young country-ladies as models, for instance in his painting 'Souvenirs de Corot' he made in 1922/23
Source: 1921 - 1945, p. 96 - quote of Braque from 'Cahiers d'art', No. 10, 1935, ed. Christian Zervos - quote of Braque is referring to Corot's impact on his painting art

Georges Braque Quotes about painting

“Tactile space separates us from objects, as opposed to visual space, which separates objects from one another. I have spent my life trying to paint the former kind.”

Quote of Braque to John Richardson, in 'Braque Discusses His Art', in 'Realités', no. 93, August 1958, p. 28
1946 - 1963

Georges Braque Quotes about art

“I couldn't portray a women in all her natural loveliness.... I haven't the skill. No one has. I must, therefore, create a new sort of beauty, the beauty that appears to me in terms of volume of line, of mass, of weight, and through that beauty interpret my subjective impression. Nature is mere a pretext for decorative composition, plus sentiment. It suggests emotion, and I translate that emotion into art. I want to express the absolute, not merely the factitious woman.”

Quote of Braque, late 1908; as cited in The wild men of Paris, Gelett Burgess, https://monoskop.org/images/f/f3/Burgess_Gelett_1910_The_Wild_Men_of_Paris.pdf in 'The Architectural Record', p. 405, May 1910; as cited in Braque, by Edwin Mullins, Thames and Hudson, London 1968, p. 34
1908 - 1920

“The arts which achieve their effect through purity have never been arts that were good for everything. Greek sculpture (among others) with its decadence, teaches us this.”

Source: 1908 - 1920, quotes from Artists on Art...(1972), p. 422 - Braque's quote, Paris 1917

“One day I noticed that I could go on working art my motif no matter what the weather might be. I no longer needed the sun, for I took my light everywhere with me.”

Source: posthumous quotes, Braque', (1968), p. 30 - Braque's quote from the book, written by John Rusell, London 1959

Georges Braque Quotes

“It is the act of painting, not the finished painting.”

1946 - 1963, interview with John Richardson' (1957)

“We [ Picasso and Braque], were living in Montmartre, we saw each other every day.... We were like two mountaineers roped together.”

[Braque refers to their common years in Paris, c. 1907 - 1912]
Source: posthumous quotes, Braque', (1968), p. 10

“To avoid a projection towards infinity I am interposing overlaid planes a short way off. To make it understood that things are in front of each other instead of being scattered in space.”

Quote from: 'Entretien avec Jauqes Lassaigne' - 1961; as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 94
1946 - 1963

“You see, I have made a great discovery. I no longer believe in anything. Objects don't exist for me except in so far as a rapport exists between them or between them and myself. When one attains this harmony, one reaches a sort of intellectual non-existence — what I can only describe as a sense of peace, which makes everything possible and right. Life then becomes a perpetual revelation. That is true poetry.”

Quote from The Power of Mystery (7 December 1957), a London Observer interview with John Richardson, as quoted in Braque: The Late Works (1997), by John Golding, Introduction, p. 10
unsourced variant translation: I made a great discovery. I don't believe in anything anymore. Objects do not exist for me, except that there is a harmonious relationship among them, and also between them and myself. When one reaches this harmony, one reaches a sort of intellectual void. This was everything becomes possible, everything becomes legitimate, and life is a perpetual revelation. This is true song.
1946 - 1963

“Thanks to the oval I have discovered the meaning of the horizontal and the vertical.”

as quoted in Abstract Painting, Michel Seuphor, Dell Publishing Co. (1964); p. 39
posthumous quotes

“In art progress consists not in extension but in the knowledge of its limits.”

Quote from the review 'Nord-Sud', December 1917
a remark of Braque's writings, he wrote during his long convalescence in the hospital, after he was seriously wounded in World War 1, in 1915
1908 - 1920

“The painting is finished when it has erased the idea.”

as quoted in Georges Braque: A Life (2005), p. 191 https://books.google.com/books?id=G2aWVKnJWaYC&pg=PA191
posthumous quotes

“Art is polymorphic. A picture appears to each onlooker under a different guise.”

Quote by Braque from: 'Cahiers d'Art', No. 10, 1935, ed. Christian Zervos
1921 - 1945

“I started above all by producing still-lives because in nature there is a tactile space, I would say almost manual.”

Source: 1946 - 1963, Cahiers d'art', 1954, p. 16 - In: 'Braque, la peinture et nous'

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