Violin with Fruit 1924

This painting of a violin and fruit was made by Juan Gris sometime in the 1920s with oil on canvas. Look at how Gris built up this composition, piece by piece, not quite like reality but rather like a memory. The tones are muted, the shapes flat, and the painting is more like an arrangement than a description. I imagine Gris was thinking about the nature of seeing itself, how we piece together what’s in front of us. The way he used line to divide objects reminds me of the way we might isolate forms in our minds, like holding them up for inspection. It's as if Gris is asking: can we ever really see something objectively, or is everything filtered through our own experience? I can see the influence of Cézanne’s still lives here, which sought to represent objects from multiple viewpoints simultaneously. It feels like Gris is in conversation with him across time. These artists build on each other’s curiosity, don’t you think?