Nudes and Canephora

Braque created a stir of surprise at the 1922 Salon d’Automne when he revealed his Canéphores. The theme of these feminine figures evokes Classical Antiquity and is reminiscent of the Nymphs adorning Jean Goujon’s Fontaine des Innocents, icons of French classicism. Braque’s figures remain loyal to late Cubism in their anti-academic proportions and colors, but they also embody the complexity of Braque’s “return to order” and figuration, a product of his fascination with Corot and Chardin, during the 1920s