Artwork Information

Georges Braque painted this Cubist still life in 1912, when he was collaborating closely with his friend and fellow painter Pablo Picasso. From 1910–12, the two artists worked side by side in Paris and in the small town of Céret, inciting each other to ever more radical explorations of Cubism. They became, in the words of Braque, ‘rather like a pair of climbers roped together’.

'La tasse [The Cup]', 1912 is a key example of the Cubism that the artists pioneered together. Using horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines to divide the picture surface, Braque models this painting’s jumble of geometrical planes with highly gestural touches of ochre, brown and other neutral colours. Looking closely at the titled and rotated square tabletop, one sees a cup that has almost been transformed into a white rectangle, which fuses with the circular saucer beneath it. To its right is a die that has been dissected into five squares. Also discernible near the upper and lower edges of this composition are the tassels of a tablecloth, their rounded white forms partially framed by painted black commas.

− 2024