Geometric forms fragment a vertical composition containing a woodgrain table with newspapers, a guitar, and a stemmed wine glass. These objects are vividly painted within a V-shaped fragment at center. Muted, shadowlike versions of the objects appear outside it. The outline of the guitar is repeated in the V in brown, green, blue, and black alongside a fragment of brown floral wallpaper.

Abstraction (Guitar and Glass)

1913

Juan Gris Spanish, 1887–1927

Spain

Juan Gris traveled to Paris in 1906 and soon moved to the neighborhood of Montmartre, where he met Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Eventually, Gris joined their artistic circle and participated in the development of Cubism. In Abstraction (Guitar and Glass), he incorporated objects often used in Cubist still-life painting—musical instruments, newspaper, a glass, and a tabletop. Rather than shatter their forms, however, Gris took a more synthetic approach to the composition. The overlapping planes, flattened appearance, and rhythmic patterns of the painting reinforce the two-dimensional nature of the picture’s surface, while the trompe l’oeil effects, deeply saturated colors, strong light-dark contrasts, and precise definition of forms give the still life an extraordinary physical reality.

Oil on canvas

Modern Art