Remembering a Veteran: Georges Braque — Poilu and Cubist

 

Prewar—Still Life with Metronome,  1909 

Georges Braque (1882–1963) was a modern artist who painted in the Cubist style. Before the war, he was involved with an extensive network of artists including Pablo Picasso. As a member of the French army reserves, he was called up for duty when France mobilized on 1 August 1914. Pablo Picasso was one of the friends who saw him off at the railroad station when he departed for military service. Braque served as a sergeant in an infantry regiment in the early days of the war.

“I’m now in the firing line,” he wrote to Picasso on 29 November. “I had my baptism about a week ago…There’s a lot of fighting here and we’ve taken up guard among dead Boches and unfortunately some (French) marines. Now the area is fairly calm. You can’t imagine a battlefield is like with the uprooted trees and the earth dug up by the shells.” 

In the Trenches

Afterward:

•  Suffers a severe head wound in combat in 1915. He is temporarily blinded.

•  Relieved of military service, he returns to art in 1916. 

•  [But] Remains well known today as a French modern artist

Post Wartime Service—Still Life with Musical Instruments, 1918

Braque resumed painting in late 1916. Working alone, he began to moderate the harsh abstraction of Cubism. He developed a more personal style characterized by brilliant color, textured surfaces, and—after his relocation to the Normandy seacoast—the reappearance of the human figure. 

Source:  MacArthur Memorial "In Their Shoes"; arthistoryunstuffed, 5 August 2016; Archive.org