I Miss Georges Braque’s The Shower

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Karen Schneider

The Phillips Collection galleries have been dark and empty and our staff and visitors have been missing our beloved collection. In this series we will highlight artworks that the Phillips staff have really been missing lately. Head Librarian Karen Schneider on why she misses Georges Braque’s The Shower (1952).

Georges Braque, The Shower, 1952, Oil on canvas, 13 3/4 x 21 1/2 in., The Phillips Collection, Acquired 1953

I miss the visual nourishment that Georges Braque’s The Shower provides, as well as the respite from these troubling times. I crave the contact with this and other beloved paintings in The Phillips Collection that I turn to for sustenance even under ordinary circumstances. Here, as Braque did in this painting, we are drawing on memory to recall our relationship with the world.

Braque’s The Shower is a small but powerful landscape that is intimate in scale and poetic in approach. Painted from memory, it depicts a bicycle leaning against two tree trunks in the countryside of Normandy, France. An isolated shower is suggested by diagonal dashes of rain, depicted in long white brushstrokes falling on the area to the right of the two trees. The owner of the hastily depicted bicycle, possibly the artist himself, is nowhere to be seen. His presence is communicated by his absence, much as we today are experiencing our absence from all but our most immediate environment—the home. Braque’s emphasis on the tactile qualities of the landscape arouses the viewer’s sense of touch and our experience of the natural environment. Braque found the subtle earth tones and slate blue skies of the north more conducive to his meditative nature than the dazzling sunlight of southern France. We long for the healing properties that come from being immersed in nature—experiencing the fresh air, sun, sky, trees, and flowers even more vividly after being confined at home every day.

The ability of museums to make their exhibitions available online is commendable but no substitute for the immersive experience that a direct encounter with a work of art provides. Our absorption in works of art leads to greater connectivity and, as Duncan Phillips said, fosters a “quickening of perception” that stays with us as we return to our everyday lives.

Collective Collage Inspired by Braque

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Experiment Station

Participants in a recent art workshop enjoyed a brief discussion about Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life, 1928-1945 and lesson in cubist composition led by artists Ken Kewley and Jill Phillips. Each individual created a personal cubist collage and contributed to a group composition inspired by forms in Braque’s works.

In the workshop, participants study reproductions of Braque’s paintings and cut and paste their own abstract shapes onto small squares. Photos: Caitlin Brague

To practice the layered effect seen in cubist works, participants worked in small teams to make a group composition. Each person drew an abstract form onto transparency paper and layered it with another. After some deliberation, a final composition was agreed upon and scanned into a single image. Photos: Caitlin Brague

One participant absorbed in her work, while another displays her masterpiece! Photos: Caitlin Brague

Caitlin Brague, Graduate Intern for Programs and Lectures

Meeting Braque Halfway

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Experiment Station

Georges Braque, The Round Table, 1929. Oil, sand, charcoal on canvas, 57 3/8 x 44 3/4 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Acquired 1934 © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

A few weeks after the exhibition Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life, 1928–1945 opened, I incorporated a quote by Duncan Phillips into my tour of Braque’s The Round Table. It’s from his 1926 book A Collection in the Making.

“No matter how sound the museum director’s policy of ‘playing safe,’ there must be collectors bold enough to make mistakes while encouraging development and progress…. I cannot resist the temptation to introduce a few of these challenging young artists in our midst.”

When Phillips added The Round Table to his collection in 1934 it was the largest, most abstract, and what some considered the most challenging work he displayed to date.

After I read this quote, I invite viewers to spend a minute or so looking closely at The Round Table and thinking about what they see in the painting that might be challenging. The most common responses are:

Perspective – some do not see any perspective; others see many different perspectives
Size
Colors
Objects on the table look like they are about to fall off
Combination of abstraction and figuration
Cubist elements
Texture
The round table isn’t round!

Watching the visitors look for the challenges in Braque’s work and listening to their responses, I have noticed a change in the overall reaction to The Round Table. Many more visitors react positively, and as they share their ideas with the rest of the group, I can often see the satisfaction they feel in rising to the challenge of Braque’s work.

Sometimes we see a challenging work and dismiss it without digging deeper. Since I began my graduate studies in art history at George Washington University I have tried harder to unpack challenging works, or what some refer to as “meeting the work halfway.” It is not always easy, but I think it is worth the effort!

Beth Rizley Evans, Graduate Intern for Programs and Lectures