Georges Braque, born in 1882 in Argenteuil, France, was a pioneering figure in the development of Cubism, alongside Pablo Picasso. His innovative approach to painting revolutionized the art world and had a profound impact on 20th-century art.

Fauvism and Impressionism influenced Braque’s early works, but he soon began experimenting with geometric forms and fragmented images, leading to the development of Cubism. Alongside Picasso, Braque broke down objects into geometric shapes and reassembled them in abstract forms, challenging traditional notions of representation.

Braque’s contributions to Cubism extended beyond painting; he also worked in sculpture, collage, and printmaking, further expanding the possibilities of artistic expression. His collaborations with Picasso during the early 20th century laid the groundwork for modern art movements such as Abstract Expressionism and Constructivism.

Despite facing personal challenges, including injuries sustained during World War I, Braque continued to innovate and evolve as an artist. His legacy as one of the founders of Cubism and a leading figure in modern art remains unparalleled, inspiring generations of artists to push the boundaries of artistic convention.

Georges Braque Quotes

1. “Truth exists; only lies are invented.”
— Georges Braque

2. “Art is a wound turned into light.”
— Georges Braque

3. “Writing is not describing, painting is not depicting. Verisimilitude is merely an illusion.”
— Georges Braque

5. “The painting is finished when the idea has disappeared.”
— Georges Braque

6. “If we had never met Picasso, would Cubism have been what it is? I think not. The meeting with Picasso was a circumstance in our lives.”
— Georges Braque

7. “Never join an organization.”
— Georges Braque

8. “With age, art and life become one.”
— Georges Braque

9. “I do not believe in things. I believe in relationships.”
— Georges Braque

10. “Reality only reveals itself when it is illuminated by a ray of poetry.”
— Georges Braque

11. “The things that Picasso and I said to one another during those years will never be said again, and even if they were, no one would understand them anymore. It was like being roped together on a mountain.”
— Georges Braque

12. “Out of limitations, new forms emerge.”
— Georges Braque

13. “There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain.”
— Georges Braque

14. “One must not imitate what one wants to create.”
— Georges Braque

15. “Art is polymorphic. A picture appears to each onlooker under a different guise.”
— Georges Braque

16. “La ve rite existe; on n’invente que le mensonge. Truth exists; only lies are invented.”
— Georges Braque

17. “It is the unforeseeable that creates the event.”
— Georges Braque

18. “I am much more interested in achieving unison with nature than in copying it.”
— Georges Braque

19. “One day I noticed that I could go on working my art motif no matter what the weather might be. I no longer needed the sun, for I took my light everywhere with me.”
— Georges Braque

20. “Poetry is to a painting what life is to man.”
— Georges Braque

21. “I find that it is important to work slowly. Anyone who looks at such a canvas will follow the same path the artist took, and he will experience that it is the path which counts more than the outcome of it, and that the route taken has been the most interesting part.”
— Georges Braque

22. “Colour acts simultaneously with form, but has nothing to do with form.”
— Georges Braque

23. “Perspective starts from one viewpoint and never gets away from it. But the viewpoint is quite unimportant. It is though someone were to draw profiles all his life, leading people to think that a man has only one eye…”
— Georges Braque

24. “Thanks to the oval I have discovered the meaning of the horizontal and the vertical.”
— Georges Braque

25. “It is the limitation of means that determines style, gives rise to new forms and makes creativity possible.”
— Georges Braque

26. “Perspective is a ghastly mistake which it has taken four centuries to redress.”
— Georges Braque

27. “Scientific perspective forces the objects in a picture to disappear away from the beholder instead of bringing them within his reach as painting should.”
— Georges Braque

28. “Evidence exhausts the truth.”
— Georges Braque

29. “To define a thing is to substitute the definition for the thing itself.”
— Georges Braque

30. “Colour could give rise to sensations which would interfere with our conception of space.”
— Georges Braque

31. “I realized that one cannot reveal oneself without mannerism, without some evident trace of one’s personality. But all the same one should not go too far in that direction…”
— Georges Braque

32. “Art upsets, science reasures.”
— Georges Braque

33. “To work from nature is to improvise.”
— Georges Braque

34. “I have made a great discovery. I no longer believe in anything.”
— Georges Braque

35. “The space between the dish and the pitcher, that I paint also.”
— Georges Braque

36. “Nature is a mere pretext for a decorative composition, plus sentiment. It suggests emotion, and I translate that emotion into art.”
— Georges Braque

37. “Whatever is in common is true; but likeness is false.”
— Georges Braque

38. “In a painting, what counts is the unexpected.”
— Georges Braque

39. “The painter thinks in terms of form and color. The goal is not to be concerned with the reconstitution of an anecdotal fact, but with constitution of a pictorial fact.”
— Georges Braque

40. “In art, progress lies not in an extension, but in a knowledge of limitations.”
— Georges Braque

41. “One has to arrive at a specific temperature, at which the objects become malleable.”
— Georges Braque

42. “We will never have repose. The present is perpetual.”
— Georges Braque

43. “There is more sensitivity in technique than in the rest of the picture.”
— Georges Braque

44. “Painting is a nail to which I fasten my ideas.”
— Georges Braque

45. “One has to guard against a formula that is good for everything, that can interpret reality in addition to the other arts, and that rather than creating can only result in a style, or a stylization.”
— Georges Braque

46. “Emotion should not be rendered by an excited trembling; it can neither be added on nor be imitated. It is the seed, the work is the flower.”
— Georges Braque

47. “I considered that the painter’s personality should be kept out of things, and therefore pictures should be anonymous. It was I who decided that pictures should not be signed, and for a time Picasso did the same.”
— Georges Braque

48. “When one reaches this state of harmony between things and one’s self, one reaches a state of perfect freedom and peace-which makes everything possible and right. Life becomes perpetual revelation.”
— Georges Braque

49. “I thought that from the moment someone else could do the same as myself, there was no difference between the pictures and they should not be signed. Afterwards I realized it was not so and began to sign my pictures again. Picasso had begun again anyhow.”
— Georges Braque

50. “Once an object has been incorporated in a picture it accepts a new destiny.”
— Georges Braque

51. “You put a blob of yellow here, and another at the further edge of the canvas: straight away a rapport is established between them. Colour acts in the way that music does…”
— Georges Braque

52. “Work to perfect the mind. There is no certitude but in what the mind conceives.”
— Georges Braque

53. “Limited means often constitute the charm and force of primitive painting. Extension, on the contrary, leads the arts to decadence.”
— Georges Braque

54. “I do not think my painting has ever been revolutionary. It was not directed against any kind of painting. I have never wanted to prove that I was right and someone else wrong…”
— Georges Braque

55. “Whatever is valuable in painting is precisely what one is incapable of talking about.”
— Georges Braque

56. “It is not sufficient that what one paints should be made visible. It must be made tangible.”
— Georges Braque

57. “There are certain mysteries, certain secrets in my own work which even I don’t understand, nor do I try to do so.”
— Georges Braque

58. “Progress in art does not consist in reducing limitations, but in knowing them better.”
— Georges Braque

59. “You may give all the explanations you like, but your painting makes me feel as if you were trying to make us eat cotton waste and wash it down with kerosene.”
— Georges Braque

60. “Reality can only be illuminated by a ray of poetry. Everything is sleep around us.”
— Georges Braque