L'ordre des oiseaux

Paris publisher Au Vent d’Arles invited artist Georges Braque and poet Saint-John Perse to create a ‘Livre d’Artiste’ together, based on the theme of bird’. Braque, who was eighty years old at the time, displays a decorative style in the etchings in the book, which is far less analytical than the work from his early Cubist period. Using simplified lines and forms and striking colors, he creates an esoteric bird motif. From the 1920s onwards, this motif frequently appeared in his work. Do memories of his childhood in Normandy play a part, a childhood that was characterized by freedom, space, color and the sea? A remarkable feature of this book is the harmonious relationship between the text and the images. The accompanying words by poet and Nobel Prize winner Saint-John Perse, with his sumptuous use of language and rich imagery, enhance this harmony. The Stedelijk owns the 20th copy of the total set of 150.