The Groove Issue 134 - Why You Don't Have to Follow Trends to Be Disruptive
Welcome to the 134th issue of The Groove.
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WHY YOU DON’T HAVE TO FOLLOW TRENDS TO BE DISRUPTIVE
There’s not one way to arrive at groundbreaking ideas. What I desire to convey with each issue of The Groove is that regardless of the era, creative human behavior that results in greatness is vast; it doesn’t circumscribe to one way of doing things and anything can be replicated by anyone willing to do so.
Circumstances vary, technology makes lives easier, and scientific advancements change the course of humanity every day. But the insight that comes from being attuned to who you are, where you are, who you want to be and contribute - that doesn’t change.
Georges Braque is best known as the co-inventor of cubism, alongside his friend, Pablo Picasso. Born in Argenteuil, a suburb outside of Paris, he had been drawing and painting since childhood until he started working as a full-time artist in 1901 at the age of 19.
Start With Who You Are
Georges Braque in Paris ca. 1906.
Initially taking on impressionism as his style, then switching to fauvism in 1905, Braque met Picasso in 1907 and the two became inseparable BFFs. In fact, Braque referred to their relationship as "mountain-climbers roped together”.
Whereas Picasso is accepted as the impassioned genius of the 20th century, with the fame and personality to match, Braque was temperamentally cut from very different cloth. As John Richards, the biographer of Picasso, observed, Braque was the antithesis of Picasso: cool, meditative, at peace.
While Picasso and Henri Matisse had an ardent rivalry and a desire to outdo one another, Braque wasn’t measuring his life or creations by what his peers were doing. Epic, big, bold paintings were churned out from Picasso’s and Matisse’s studios, but Braque couldn’t care less. He was focused on more intimate works, preoccupied with how to change textures, defy the flatness of the canvas, create a different type of dimension.
This is a perfect illustration of someone who didn’t allow anyone to eclipse his own process, thoughts, and execution. Braque had no desire to duplicate other painters’ grandeur.
If you have fully independent ideas and follow your own hunches regardless of how loud and flamboyant others may be, you may embark upon adventures that are much more fulfilling than pursuing the exhausting path of trying to keep up with trends, personalities and styles that are far from yours.
Have a Profoundly Informed View of The Status Quo
Fruit Dish and Glass (1912), by Georges Braque, is the first collage in art history. Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Every successful entrepreneur and every memorable artist has looked around and thought: I can change this, I can contribute something else. But that requires knowledge, time, commitment, and practice.
While the idea of changing things equals disruption, not every act of disruption equals scandalous media stunts or turning every opportunity to contest something into a boxing ring. It’s possible to do great new things with elegance and restraint.
In the beginning of his career, Braque had experimented with a variety of styles and slowly conceived one of his main preoccupations: that nature couldn’t ever be replicated in art. It took more than six years to refine his ideas but once he met Picasso, he had found the perfect mate to discuss and try things out with until they both arrived at their framework: Cubism became the rejection of conventional ideas about art as the imitation of reality.
With this as a guiding principle to disrupt the status quo, Braque channeled his creativity towards his use of materials and textures and the manipulation of light and space.
In the fall of 1912, Braque, while wandering the streets of Avignon, spotted something in a store window that caught his attention. It was a roll of faux bois wallpaper that simulated oak paneling. He bought it, and once in his studio started cutting it into different shapes and glued the fragments onto one of his charcoal drawings, which depicted words, a glass bowl, pears, and grapes.
After that he drew and painted over the fake wood paper and mounted it on a mix of sand and gesso. That brought texture and even more dimension to the composition. In doing this, Braque invented the art medium of collage; a brand-new creative form that other cubist artists, Dadaists and surrealists quickly adopted. Modern collage, as Braque invented it, was the precursor of decoupage, photomontage, Photoshop, the mood board, and Pinterest. Talk about disruption!
Once You’ve Found Your Thing, Momentum Follows
You can take a page from Braque’s playbook that you can still disrupt and be successful by standing on a slow and profound view of what exists combined with as many practical attempts to change it as needed.
The collage was a massive breakthrough. So much so that Braque said, “After having made the papier collé, I felt a great shock and it was even a greater shock to Picasso when I showed it to him.”
But he didn’t stop there. In form and substance, Braque continued to be an undeniable innovator. The surface of his subsequent paintings was rarely flat and he called his sketchbooks “cookbooks”, a perfect analogy that extends to his inventive use of materials: texture and viscosity of medium achieved through mixing paint with grit, sand, cinders and coffee.
He acknowledged that the trick was not about rushing anything but about building momentum. “This is the kind of discovery which one makes gradually, though once a beginning had been made other discoveries follow.”
It could be easy to dismiss Braque as Picasso’s number two, but many historians and critics have pointed out that without Braque, there wouldn’t be Picasso.
Picasso became mythical in his lifetime. But Braque never wavered. In fact, while his relationship with Picasso lasted for almost 60 years, it was Picasso who always longed for Braque’s company. In his long, fruitful career Braque understood his place and had full ownership of his contribution: “Cubism or rather my cubism was a means that I created for my use, whose primary aim was to put painting within the reach of my own gifts ...”
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TEDX TALK
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I share three lessons I have learned from artists that always work for anyone in their careers. Watch it here.