Composed of harmonious planes of seamlessly interlockingcolour, pattern, line and form, Les deux as (The Two Aces)exemplifies Georges Braque’s great mastery of the still-life, agenre which he spent his life exploring. Painted in 1929, Les deuxas dates from what John Richardson has described as a period of‘frenzied experimentation’ (J. Richardson, Georges Braque, London,1959, p. 20) for Braque, a time when the artist, reaching maturity,began to explore a range of possibilities that the still-lifeprovided. The two aces of the title radiate from the composition;at once weighty and opaque, and at the same time feather-light asthey seemingly float above the faceted tabletop on which they lie.It is colour, however, that comes to the fore in this painting,arranged throughout the composition with an effortless ease. Thesame cubist fragmentation of perspective and form is in evidence,yet, in contrast to the near-monochrome paintings that Braque andhis cubist comrade Pablo Picasso painted during this earlier stage,in the present work, the composition is flooded with rich,jewel-like facets of colour. Against the soft blue dish, the yellowand orange peach in the centre of the painting glows like a goldenorb, around which an array of green tones is placed in perfectaccord.
乔治·布拉克 两张王牌 局部
The combination of varying planes of fattened patterning inLes deux as is reminiscent of Braque’s synthetic cubist style.Moving away from the rigorous and somewhat austere form of earlyCubism – now known as Analytic Cubism – in around 1912, Braquebegan introducing textures, patterns and real fragments of paperinto his paintings, overlaying them to build up collage-likecompositions. This pioneering technique, known as papier-collé,allowed Braque, along with Picasso and Juan Gris, to play withreality and illusion, representation and mimesis. While the glass,blue dish, fruit and playing cards are all realistic, readableobjects, within Braque’s composition they lose their everydayidentity and serve also as abstract shapes and forms. Braque had aunique ability to transform the everyday ephemera of life intopaintings that are at once monumental and intimate, majestic andsubtle, capturing the way in which objects interact and coexistwithin space. Braque reflected that ‘Once an object has beenintegrated into a picture, it accepts a new destiny and at the sametime becomes universal… And as they give up their habitualfunction, so objects acquire a human harmony. Then they becomeunited by the relationships which spring up between them, and moreimportant between them and the picture and ultimately myself. Onceinvolved in this universality, they all draw closer together,because we have human eyes, and then they refer uniquely toourselves’ (quoted in D. Cooper, exh. cat., Braque: The GreatYears, Chicago, 1972, p. 111).
乔治·布拉克(GeorgesBraque，1882—1963)，法国立体主义绘画大师，1882年生于塞纳河畔的阿让特伊。与毕加索早期作品属印象派和野兽派。与毕加索合作，直到1914年，共同发起立体主义绘画运动。最早将字母糅合进绘画，将颜料与沙子混合作画和使用拼贴画法。晚年作品包括静物画和风景画，风格渐趋现实主义。他的影响实际上并不比毕加索小。并且，“立体主义”这一名称还是由他的作品而来。
《Cahiers d'Art》，1930年，編號1，第9頁 (插圖)
〈Georges Braque〉《Cahiers d'Art》，1933年，第60頁 (插圖)
Maeght編 《Catalogue de l’oeuvre de Georges Braque: Peintures1928-1935》，巴黎，1962年，圖號33 (插圖)
