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Still Life (Compote and Fruit)

1926-1928
Georges Braque (French, 1882–1963)

In Still Life (Compote and Fruit), a wineglass, a footed compote bowl with fruit, sheet music for a waltz (in French, "valse"), and a pear are laid across a tabletop. The crisp architecture of table linen complements their soft, supple shapes. As is typical for Braque, this picture is rich in material processes. Rough strokes of the brush indicate light, shadow, and the touch of objects; more finely painted areas of pink and green above the still life represent imitation marbling painted on the back wall. Braque had learned to simulate materials such as marble and wood in his teenage years from his family’s decorative painting business. He imported these artisanal techniques into his Cubist pictures in the early 1910s to ask new questions about the nature of reality and illusion in painting—and also to playfully puncture the pretentiousness of fine art.


Object Details

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