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Cubism, invented by Braque and Pablo Picasso at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, brought about a radical change in the history of art. According to one of the key witnesses to this change, the dealer Daniel H. Kahnweiler who represented the Cubist painters: "One can only understand what was happening at that time in the visual arts if one remembers that we were participating in the birth of a new era, in which man (all of humanity, in fact) was undergoing the most radical transformation which had ever taken place." This revolution brought about the end of all the established norms which had prevailed in art since the Renaissance and, by terminating with the concept of art as the representation of Nature, opened a new period of freedom in art which has survived to the present times. Taking Cézanne as their point of departure, the two artists created a new relationship between volume and space, trying, in Apollinaire's words "to paint new compositions with elements taking not from the reality of vision, but rather from the reality of knowledge."
Woman with a Mandolin, painted by Braque in 1910, is an example of the first phase of Cubism, known as Analytical Cubism. In it he returned to the human figure after two years dedicated to the painting of landscapes and still lifes. This may have been prompted by the impression made on him by twenty four figure paintings by Corot shown at the Autumn Salon in Paris in 1909. Corot's seated figures of women holding musical instruments and evoking a mood of melancholy impressed both Braque and Picasso and their influence is evident in the work of both artists for some years. Corot taught them that the addition of a musical instrument gave the figure the sense of stillness associated with still lifes. In addition musical instruments combined the allegorical and visual possibilities of the subject -a traditional theme in Baroque painting- with Braque's great love of music.
Both Braque and Picasso rapidly responded to the inspiration of the great nineteenth century painter in early 1910. Braque painted the present Woman with a Mandolin which is of rectangular format, and another (Bayerische Staatsgemälde Sammlungen, Munich) which was the first oval format Cubist painting. At almost the same time Picasso painted a Woman with a Mandolin of rectangular format and another Woman with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier) of oval shape. As Christopher Green (1995) has noted, with these works the oval format -traditionally associated with eighteenth century decorative painting- joins the Cubist repertoire.
In the present painting the figure, as with the objects in the still lifes of the previous year, is broken down into its various elements and is put together again in a new order. During this phase of the fragmentation of form the colours are reduced to a minimum (ochres, greys and browns) although even with such a reduced palette Braque realised a wide variety of pictorial effects through the use of a divisionist technique of small brushstrokes. Some recognisable elements remain, such as the mandolin and the hand holding it, while other parts such as the head and the shoulders are barely discernible. This form of realism, which might be called conceptual, did not aim to destroy the form but rather to reinforce its pictorial autonomy. As Braque wrote in 1917, "the aim is not the reconstitution of an anecdotal fact, but rather the constitution of a pictorial fact."
Paloma Alarcó
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