Georges Braque

Georges Braque was a French painter born on May 13, 1882, in Argenteuil-sur-Seine, near Paris. He grew up there and in the city of Le Havre where he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He began developing his painting skills while working for his father as a house decorator. By 1900 he moved to Paris to purse the study of painting as fine art. In his early works Braques’ style was early impressionism. It wasn’t until a few years later when he was influenced in the works of well known artists such as Matisse, Derain, Cezanne, and exspecially Picasso. Braque meeting Picasso was only the beginning of a huge turning point in his artistic development. Both Picasso and Braque began to work closely together. The two of them began to develop a similar approach in painting and invented analytic cubism. Cubism is a style known for geometric shapes that are seen thorough multiple viewpoints. Both artists produced paintings of neutralized colors and complex patterns. They worked so closely together that many pieces of their work look almost identical. In many instances only experts can distinguish Braque’s paintings from Picasso’s. Later, they both began to experiment with collage. Collage is a technique of constructing images from everyday life materials such as newspapers, labels, and pieces of fabric.

In 1914, Braque enlisted in the French army. During World War I he had gotten severely wounded in the head and was discharged from the army. He went back home to Paris to resume his a...