Still Life with Tenora

Still Life with Tenora is a seminal work created by Georges Braque in 1913, marking a crucial step in the development of Synthetic Cubism. This influential piece is classified as a drawing due to its compositional methods, though it aggressively blurs the line between traditional media. The work exemplifies Braque's pioneering use of papier collé, a revolutionary technique that he and Pablo Picasso developed to introduce tangible, real-world elements directly onto the abstract space of the canvas.

The medium is highly complex, combining cut-and-pasted printed and painted paper with traditional drawing materials such as charcoal, chalk, and pencil, all applied over a gessoed canvas. By utilizing found paper-based elements, Braque challenged established notions of artistic material and illusionistic representation prevalent in early twentieth-century French art. The resulting visual texture highlights the planar dissection and fractured viewpoints characteristic of Cubism while suggesting volumes in a shallow space.

The title refers to a tenora, a type of woodwind instrument, reinforcing the common motif of musical instruments and sound within Braque’s oeuvre during this highly experimental period. The inclusion of recognizable patterns and fragments of printed matter destabilizes the viewer’s perception, forcing recognition of the object not through conventional artistic illusion but through symbolic reference and material fragment. Braque used the papier collé method not merely for visual effect but as a means of exploring the materiality and textural reality of everyday objects.

While designated a drawing based on the dominance of pencil and charcoal application, the piece’s sophisticated integration of non-traditional materials makes it a defining example of mixed media art from 1913. Still Life with Tenora is held in the prestigious collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where it serves as a cornerstone example of Braque's revolutionary contribution to modern art history.