Art: Helmets with Weather Vanes

An odd and striking book—the Greek text of the 8th century B.C. poet Hesiod, faced by illustrations by one of France’s leading modern painters, 72-year-old Georges Braque—is making art news in Paris. First commissioned in 1932 by one of France’s leading art dealers, the work was lost during the war years, was completed by Braque only two months ago. The $600 limited edition, published this week, was hailed as “a perfect blending of Greek classicism and French modernism,” proof that “Braque is one of the great creative spirits of modern art.”

But for most viewers the 23 Braque drawings will have an eerie dimension. Braque attempts to break the barriers of a dead language and recapture the almost childlike age when giants. Titans and nymphs shared the world with mortals and Olympian gods. The attempt, in the words of one French critic, becomes something akin to “adventurous voyages in the half-shadows of the irrational.”

Both subject and style are of Braque’s own choosing. “Hesiod’s Theogony* has been one of my favorites ever since I read it for the first time in school,” Braque explains. “Every line inspires a picture.” To capture the inspirations Braque has used a continuous, supple line, adding a note of childlike wonder to the Greek motifs by giving his warriors helmets with weather vanes, picturing chariots racing serenely through the heavens on scrawled bicycle wheels. To critics who note that his drawings for the new book—done over the last 22 years—have a remarkable sameness in style, Braque explains simply: “Hesiod’s gods have been fixed in my mind ever since I read the book. Hesiod’s poetry is timeless.”

*I.e., the genealogy of the gods.