“The Sideboard,” a distinguished artwork by Georges Braque, was created in 1920 and is an embodiment of the Synthetic Cubism movement. Braque, a pioneering French artist, crafted this still life using oil on canvas. The artwork resides in the collection of the Beyeler Foundation, located in Riehen, Switzerland.
The artwork presents a complex assemblage of shapes and planes, which is characteristic of Synthetic Cubism, a later phase of Cubism that focused on combining elements of the visible world with a variety of textures and patterns. Through this technique, Braque aimed to suggest objects rather than delineate them outrightly. In “The Sideboard,” various objects seem to interlock with each other, with geometrical forms taking precedence over the details that would describe these objects in a realistic manner.
There’s an apparent fragmentation of the objects within the painting, making it difficult to discern where one ends and another begins. Instead, the viewer is invited to interpret the overlapping and intersecting planes, discerning hints of the titular sideboard and perhaps items that might rest upon it, such as vessels, fruit, or musical instruments. The color palette is somewhat muted, with a dominance of earth tones punctuated by bursts of yellow and lighter hues, which help to create a sense of depth and highlight certain features of the composition.
Overall, the artwork exemplifies Braque’s innovative approach to representing reality, breaking down forms and space to convey not just the physical appearance of objects, but also their essence and relationship within a shared space.
