Juan
Gris
Violin
and Guitar
Oil on Canvas, Painting
100 x 65.5 cm
1913
Juan
Gris (1887-1927) was born in Madrid where he studied mechanical drawing at the
Escuela de Artes y Manufacturas, during which time he contributed drawings to
local periodicals. From 1904 to 1905 he studied painting with the academic
artist José Maria Carbonero. In 1906 he moved to Paris where Gris followed the
lead of another friend and fellow countryman, Pablo Picasso. Gris refined the
cubist vocabulary into his own instantly recognizable visual language. He is
often referred to as ‘the third cubist’ beside Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.
Juan Gris was more calculating than any other Cubist painter in the way he
composed his pictures. Every element of a painting was considered with
classical precision: line, shape, tone, color and pattern were carefully
refined to create an interlocking arrangement free from any unnecessary
decoration or detail. The
whole idea of space is rearranged – the front, back and sides of the subject
become interchangeable elements. Gris’ images combine his observation with
memory of the subject to create a poetic evocation of the theme.
Violin
and Guitar is a magisterial statement that marked 1913 as the beginning of
Gris's mature art. Here he combines the inherent dignity and poetic quality of
the objects with an exploration of their three-dimensional aspects. An
essentially cruciform composition underlies the whole and lends a hierarchical
air; however, as with his use of the golden section, Gris was never absolutely
precise in making his measurements fit a predetermined scheme. The painting is
built on a series of pictorial rhymes among the forms of the guitar, violin,
and glass. Gris's predilection for rhymes, or rhythms based on visual
similarities, has been compared to the techniques of the poets who were so much
a part of his milieu, but it can also be found in the art of his colleagues.
More fundamentally poetic is the spirited flight of artistic manipulation that
occurs in the central section, juxtaposed with the conventional world
symbolized by the wood molding, wallpaper, and floorboards of a surrounding
room. These background details establish a representational setting as well as
a pictorial plane of possibilities. This richly detailed room should be seen as
having fantastic associations for Gris since he reportedly lived in utter
squalor.
This
piece was chosen to look at the different styles of still life, since still
life is meant to look at object in different ways. This painting offers one the
ability to look at a simple object in a new way with different dimensions. It
takes the style of still life to a new level- that is a different dimension.
Two seemingly extravagant objects are seen in different ways and portrayed in
varying places, without knowing there’s a violin and a guitar one might miss
the latter entirely. But it makes the viewer pause, there’s a lot going on in
the painting yet there’s just a small amount depicted. There’s much symbolism
in that which causes the viewer to think about the “conventional world” in a new
light.
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