Broc et trois bouteilles

‘Broc et trois bouteilles’ is a greatly simplified still life depicting a tilted table on which a pale-coloured jug with a handle, a lemon and some bottles have been placed. Georges Braque painted it in sombre, muted shades: ochres, greens and greys. In 1908, the year when this still life was created, Braque had just completed his first Cubist paintings. The influence of Cézanne could still clearly be seen. Both Braque and Picasso abandoned the linear perspective, with the awareness that it was just one way of seeing, which could not possibly capture the entirety of visual experience. Although Cézanne remained true to the visible reality in his work, Braque used the still life as a starting point for his artistic investigations into the representation of physical space. Broc et trois bouteilles exhibits flattened volume and shifting perspective, as objects are reduced to geometric shapes. These features, which were already implicitly present in Cézanne’s work, were to become characteristics of Cubism.