Georges Braque: A Life

Georges Braque, an artist who marched to the beat of his own drummer is as fascinating and as recondite a persona as his friend Picasso was mercurial and celebrated. This friendship has been at the very least, superficially explained in this yeoman's opus.If you have any interest in modern art, this biography goes a long way in explaining the dynamics which influenced the troika of Matisse, Picaso and Braque. More importantly, it introduces the reader to the man, Braque, a person whom the reader should come to admire as a husband, artist, and public person. I found the most admirable quality Braque had was loyalty, loyalty to his artistic vision, friends, wife, and personnel values.A good biography should introduce you to its character from his beginnings, before he is encrusted by the patina of fame and myth. I can honestly say that this book suceeds beyond expectations. As the title of this review implies, even if the reader has little interest in Braque the artist, it is well worth reading in order to meet the man and his times.

I got this for a research paper and it is far too in depth for what I needed it for, however, it is a book about Braque's life. I just found it had a lot of unnecessary details.

Very dull

It is remarkable how few books have been written on Braque. I find him a charming character, based on what I read about him in Richardson's superb bio of Picasso, but I don't like Danchev's style in this bio, and have the feeling that his research was incomplete and too superficial when he wrote it. The organization is lacking, and this appears to derive from a lack of depth on Danchev's part. He rambles most of the time, and needed a disciplined editor. The book doesn't have good reproductions of some important paintings, and one of the color plates, of the ceiling at the Louvre, was taken at an angle that IMO detracts from its presentation. Danchev emphasizes trivia and major themes are lost in the junkpile of his notes, which this book appears to be. In a bio of Braque, I consider it essential to make a strong point about his seminal paintings that initiated first analytic, and then synthetic cubism. Similarly, it is important to tell how he used techniques he learned as a first-rate house painter to impart an original stamp to synthetic cubism, and how Picasso learned these techniques from Braque. I shall confess that I haven't read through the entire book, because I find it painful to read, and don't have much patience for Danchev. Shouldn't there be pictures of Braque dancing, playing music, and especially, boxing?! Braque really deserves a good bio. Will he or she who writes the first be written off as "completement braque?"

Nice book, very good account of Braque's life and work and various related issues associated with Braque.A bit difficult to get through due to the author's love of flowery French language, but still worth getting through. This was an assigned reading for an art history class on Braque. The retrospective is here now in Houston, and with the show on going, the reading of the book is timely, but would be great at other times as well.

I have read Danchevs books on Cézanne and Braque. Cézanne contains a lot of basic material; letters, references to discussions, Cézannes friends, colleagues and family members etc. It is difficult to get a concise picture of the whole with English as the third language besides Swedish and Finnish. But it is not primarily a question of language, but the structure and the hopeless length of the work.Braque contains references and some direct copies from Cézanne. For instance when the author discusses the photos and painting of Braque by Picasso. At this point there is a problematic overlapping of the two books.Braques biggest disappointment to me is the relation of the substance to sources: substance 279 pages; the whole book including sources etc. totally 439 pages. Looks like the author has "over-favored" Cézanne at the cost of Braque, my favorite artist?

I liked it; Bracque is generally treated like a minor brother of Picasso, but he was important by himself. Thisis well described in this book.

AOK

I bought this biography to discover how such a revolution in twentieth century art occurred. This book takes you through all the relevant stages of Braque's life from boyhood to accomplished artist seeking his own path after following others - the various art schools he attended and the painters & historic periods that influenced his thinking. In 1907, in his twenty-sixth year, he "broke the mould" while working in L'Estaque, he embarked on a treatment of the elements of that place (houses, trees, roads, viaduct) that evolved into a style of painting that had no school, no code, no precedent, no name. The sheer audacity of this work propelled him into partnership with Picasso until Georges was called-up to fight and nearly die in WW1. This book takes you through the rest, which is compelling reading.

Excellently researched, an in depth academic book which gives an artistic flavour of the times and profound insight into the man and his thinking processes