La guitare 

Curator: At first glance, there’s a somber beauty to this work. The fractured shapes give it an almost melancholy feel. Editor: Indeed. Let's delve into "La guitare" attributed to Roger Bissière. It's an intriguing oil painting engaging with the Cubist idiom, even though we don't have a precise date. The choice of focusing on the guitar itself speaks volumes. It's such a charged instrument, not just musically, but culturally. Curator: You're right. The guitar is almost a universally recognised symbol of leisure, art, emotion— think of its prevalence in folk traditions worldwide, or Spanish romanticism...even in modern popular culture, the guitar can represent youthful rebellion. What is Bissière aiming for here, shattering its form like this? Is he trying to dismantle these inherited meanings? Editor: Possibly. Look at the formal qualities of the brushwork and pigment, it resists sentimentality. It looks very architectural doesn't it? Notice how Bissière is reducing the subject into near geometric forms: angular shapes replace its curves. The palette is surprisingly muted: browns, blues, greys dominate, it seems concerned primarily with shape. Curator: Those muted tones could be intentional, to strip away some of the romantic connotations and make us think harder about the underlying structure of both the object and, perhaps, its cultural symbolism. The geometric abstraction echoes, of course, Cubism's deconstruction of perspective, which could relate to cultural memory as the picture becomes a metaphor, an archetype rather than a literal representation. Editor: Right, consider how Cubism allowed the simultaneity of different viewpoints within a single canvas; multiple meanings expressed in one object. Do you feel it succeeds at completely divorcing the symbol from its context? Curator: It's difficult to say, and perhaps, it doesn't fully intend to. The recognisable form persists even amid the fragmentation. So, maybe it becomes more about prompting the viewer to interrogate the nature of those connections. Editor: Fascinating. A simple instrument depicted with unexpected conceptual depth. Curator: It seems deceptively straightforward. Thinking about these fragments, the memory they carry becomes vivid.