Patience
Georges Braque · 1942 · Oil on canvas
The story
Georges Braque painted Patience in occupied Paris in 1942. A single figure sits with playing cards, the table tilted forward as Braque liked to do — Cubism, quieted with age. The palette is deliberately close, browns and greys and muted greens, as if the room itself is holding its breath. Braque said he did not seek to depict things, but to establish "a state between things". Sit with it a moment: the stillness is the subject.
A card game held very still, painted during the war.