Le Grand Nu


Braque's monumental nude is a variant on one of the Demoiselles figures, no less bold in distortion, more severely sculptural. This is his first response to Picasso, after viewing his Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.


a) Treatment of space and form
Both facet and space are arbitrarily modeled.
The form and space is being re-invented.
The drapery is interfered with the background, and become ambiguous. (this is the facet style). These together created a flat pictorial surface.

b) Relationship to Renaissance tradition
Braque revived the Western idea of the female nude, also the drapery depicted is another traditional element.

c) Influence of Cezanne and Matisse
By 1908, Braque had shifted his attention to the paintings of Cezanne. Braque's interest in Cezanne strangely distorted forms and unconventional perspective, also his technique of modeling in terms of interlocking, overlapping planes. His subjects being sometimes not only arbitrarily lit, but seen in slightly different angles. His patchwork of marks of translucent colour, deployed across the whole surface, produced an effect of depth in volume with out destroying the flatness integrity of the painting, these led him to paint in the manner that came to be called Cubist.
The subject matter reflected the influence of Matisse: the nude, and also the block of colours used.

d) Influence of primitive art (Iberian and African)
After the bewildered by the Demoiselles, he felt compelled to come to terms with it. In the Grand Nu of 1908, the primitive distortion is very strong. The head of the figure, like the masks in Picasso's, is based on the Iberian art: it is simplified with large eyes. (But no distortion).
Braque said that African masks had opened horizons for him, helped him towards fresh, instinctive creation.

e) How is colour used?
The painting is dominated by blue and brown tones.
The effect of the use of colours is reduced to the minimum, this is because he was trying to change the nature of pictorial space, therefore concentrating on using lines for working out his ideas.

f) The meaning of the works
Grand Nu is the first response of Braque to the Demoiselles.
Braque began to contend with him in the development of this new art. For several years to come they were to explore together the possibilities of cubism.
This marked the idea of painting was changing, trying to breach the historical boundaries of flat illusionism and get closer to things in their entirely.


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