Nature morte au chandelier 1937

Pablo Picasso made this painting, Nature morte au chandelier, with oil on canvas. Imagine Picasso in his studio, wrestling with this still life. I mean, look at the push and pull of those stripes in the background! The paint is applied in layers. It's all about trial and error. He painted, scraped, and reworked the surface. There is a book in the foreground that seems to want to fall off the picture plane, it's held there by the force of the other shapes around it. You can feel that struggle in the texture and the color. The colors aren’t mixed so much as placed and juxtaposed. This is a conversation between colors, shapes, and forms, and artists have been having this conversation for centuries. Picasso is simply adding his voice. We all interpret and borrow from one another, allowing for infinite ways of seeing and knowing.