George Braque was one of the leading artists of Classic Modernism. His engagement with the Fauves, his first encounter with Pablo Picasso in 1907 and his discovery of the works of Paul Cézanne inspired him to carry out initial form-analytical attempts. Along with Picasso, it was Braque who developed Cubism. Cubism was based on the idea of taking an object apart to analyse its basic forms. In doing so, its relation to reality gradually faded, and the motif was almost completely dissolved into structures of colour and form.
When World War I broke out, Braque and Picasso went separate ways. Braque was called up for military service and returned to Paris in 1917, heavily wounded. While Braque's early post-war paintings were still devoted to synthetic Cubism, his style of painting became more picturesque and realistic from 1920 on. World War II caused the artist to paint rather sober works that befitted the gravity of the situation. From 1947, Braque's poor health often forced him to pause, but from 1949 to 1956, he still created an important series of paintings and dealt with the topic of 'birds' in particular.