The Cloud 1921

Juan Gris made this painting, The Cloud, with oil on canvas. I love how he’s pushing and pulling everything, and all these shapes feel like they’re sort of stacked together, but about to fall apart. It makes me think that making art is like juggling, where you have to keep all these different elements in the air at the same time. Look at the blue, next to the guitar, right by the newspaper. It feels really flat and solid, but the way the light hits it also makes it feel like it’s glowing. The paint looks thin in this area, almost like watercolor. And notice the sharp edges of all the shapes – they’re not blended or softened at all, which gives the painting a kind of hard, graphic feel. It reminds me of other painters like Braque, who were also trying to figure out how to make sense of the world by breaking it down into pieces and then putting it back together in a new way. It's not really about representing an object, more about inventing a new logic for seeing. It's like a visual puzzle with no right or wrong answer.