Here’s one for the Art History majors:
At MoMA, they have a couple of paintings by these two hung next to each other, and they are very close in style. Not the same, but identical palettes and similar technique. “Ma Jolie” is the Picasso one and I think Man with a Guitar is the Braque one. Every time I visit, it fascinates me.
Does anyone know the story here?
P sort of started the style, B liked it and they had a close working relationship for a couple of years. Little quote from Braque: “We were like two mountain climbers roped together.” They thought of Analytical Cubism as a movement.
(Also, after he painted Desmoiselles d’Avignon for a couple of years Picasso only showed the thing to friends, and Braque was one of the first – Braque had started out as a Fauve so he took to it well and they both take off from that starting point.)
They were working in the same place at the same time, in the same artistic context, responding to the same kind of issues. So they have some similarities.
But they’re not indistinguishable. It’s like asking, say a hundred years from now, why Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline are so similar. Well sure, there are obvious similiarities, but the more deeply familiar you are, the more differences you discover.
I remember my art history teacher saying that though Braque and Picasso started out together, Picasso really took it to the limits.
And after they parted ways, they fell out - or they fell out which led to them parting ways. Picasso spoke poorly of Braque after that - something Picasso was wont to do. Not the nicest guy - and while obviously brilliant, he took ideas from wherever he could without much thought to the impact on relationships he might have. He clearly put his art and his ambition before all else…
