Henri Matisse. The Blue Window.
1913.
Oil on canvas. 51 1/2 x 35 5/8".
The Museum of Modern Art,New York. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund.
©1997 Succession H. Matisse, Paris/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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Juan Gris. Glass and Bottle.
c. 1913.
Ink, gouache, watercolor, charcoal, and pencil on gray paper. 18 1/4 x 12 1/4".
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Celeste and Armand P. Bartos (fractional gift).
©1997 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris
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"To copy the objects in a still life is nothing, one must render the emotion
they awaken..." Henri Matisse, in Jack Flam. Matisse on Art. Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1994. p. 45.
The structures of objects, and their relationships to each other and to their
surrounding spaces, were of primary interest in the development of Analytic
Cubism during the period 191014. Picasso and Braque in particular, but also
Juan Gris, Henri Laurens, and Fernand Léger, found the still life an
exemplary site for innovation and experimentation. Abandoning the familiar
domesticity of the objects in Cézannes still lifes, they sought
inspiration in the urban milieu. The ever-changing settings of the café
tablecigars, pipes, newspapers, bottles of different sizes and shapeswere
the chosen motifs in Cubist works of the period. The playful use of words and
pasted paper to signify things introduces a more concrete reality: in Picassos
Siphon, Glass, Newspaper, and Violin, 1912, for example, the cutout word
"JOURNAL" represents a newspaper on a table, and in other works, marbled,
faux-bois, or patterned paper represents tabletops or walls. Objects drawn or
outlined over such collaged elements force a further shift in perception and
provoke multiple viewpoints, dismantling and reconstructing reality.
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