Georges Braque (1882 - 1963)

La Théogonie

Theogony
1932 for the original drawings, 1953 for the album, slipcase, chemise and frontispiece
    Album including original frontispiece colour etching, and 16 full-page etchings printed on Auvergne paper
  • Not numbered, edition of 150 impressions, printed by Féquet et Baudier, Paris, published by Adrien Maeght, Paris, 1955
44.3 × 34 cm
Signatures and Inscriptions
Blind-stamped ‘GB’ (on each etching)
Provenance

Galerie Maeght, Paris

Private collection

Exhibited

Athens, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Memories steeped in dream, August 5 – December 3, 2023

Current location
Artwork is not currently on display
Tour Guide Code
129
Audio Guide

In 1932, Ambroise Vollard, a merchant fascinated by artists’ books, proposed Georges Braque to illustrate Hesiod’s Theogony, a work written in the 7th century BC, which narrates the birth of universe and gods’ origin. Thus, by drawing on the richness of Greek mythology, he highlights his need for purity in forms and universality in the subjects treated.

Between 1932 and 1935, among the numerous drawings he created, he ended up by choosing sixteen compositions. Later on, he entrusted the printing of these etchings to the Greek painter Demetrios Galanis, whose studio was installed in Montmartre. However, this task was only completed twenty years later.

Through these sixteen compositions, we tirelessly follow a continuous line, twisted and yet fluid, that the painter seems to have drawn on the spur of the moment. These arabesques, full of grace and clarity, remind us of the surrealists’ automatic writing. They moulded, in turns, the outlines of Hesiod himself, of Gaia, Hera, Artemis, Themis, Nike, Hercules and the lesser-known Zelus. Often surrounded by a meticulously constructed frame, they challenge the viewer by their obvious simplicity, which conceals, following a more continuous examination, the artist’s real concern for the form, the balance between curves and lines, fullness and hollowness.

As often happens in all forms of art, apparent simplicity, the one that knows how to conquer both the scholar and the layman, the enthusiastic and the most reticent, hides in fact a quantity of work beyond belief. And this is the case of Georges Braque and his view of Theogony.

.

.

Georges Braque
(1882 - 1963)
Gender
Man
Nationality
French
First Name
Georges
Last Name
Braque
Birth
Argenteuil-sur-Seine, France, 1882
Death
Paris, France, 1963