In 1913, French artist Georges Braque created the artwork Violin and Pipe: Le Quotidien using a Synthetic Cubism style for a still life genre. This collage piece is made of cut-and-pasted newspaper and printed wallpapers, charcoal, graphite, and crayon on paper mounted on cardboard. With dimensions of 29 1/8 × 41 3/4 in. (74 × 106 cm), the artwork portrays a violin and pipe through an abstract lens.
Braque’s use of collage allowed him to develop his understanding of how color and form interact in painting. As one of the progenitors of Cubism, Braque influenced several still-life painters such as Jim Dine and Wayne Thiebaud. The artist initially painted a more realistic representation of the violin and palette but moved toward abstraction over time.
Born in Argenteuil, Val-d’Oise in 1882, Braque grew up in Le Havre where he trained to be a house painter and decorator while studying artistic painting at the École des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre. With his innovative approach to creating art pieces like Violin and Pipe: Le Quotidien, Braque continues to inspire future generations of artists with his unique style that challenges traditional approaches to still-life painting.