Dimensions: support: 183 x 229 mm image: 163 x 205 mm frame: 340 x 390 x 32 mm
Copyright: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: Here we have Juan Gris's "Bowl of Fruit", its date is unfortunately unknown. It's held here at the Tate. Editor: Immediately, I'm struck by the earthy tones. There's a subdued, almost melancholic atmosphere created by the limited palette. Curator: The fracturing of forms, typical of Gris’s Synthetic Cubism, evokes a sense of deconstruction. This reflects a modern unease, a questioning of stability after the war. Even the still life feels fragmented. Editor: Yet, within that fragmentation, there's a clear compositional logic. The geometric shapes interlock, creating a surprising harmony, a certain visual rhythm despite the dissonance. Curator: Fruit, historically a symbol of bounty and fertility, is here rendered almost sterile, its vibrancy muted. It suggests a loss of innocence, perhaps? Editor: Or perhaps a formal investigation into the essential nature of "fruitness," broken down into its component shapes and tones. Anyway, I find the use of line particularly deft. Curator: Yes, even in its muted presentation, "Bowl of Fruit" offers a fascinating look at how artists re-evaluated tradition. Editor: Indeed, and to that end, it really exemplifies the core tenants of cubism's formal language.
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In a 1924 lecture Gris described painting as ‘a sort of flat, coloured architecture’, a conception reflected in the structure of these three small gouaches made that year. Visual reflections and rhymes are abundant in all three works. The bulbous body of the carafe in Bowl of Fruit echoes both the apple in the centre and the circular rim of the glass on the right, while the geometrical edges of the fruit bowl itself seem to reverberate across the folds of the tablecloth. In Pipe and Domino the spots of the domino, the bowl of the pipe and the rim of the small dish constitute an expanding series of circles. In Still Life with Guitar, the echoing ovals of the mouth of the carafe and the opening of the guitar offset the linear patterns of the sheet music and guitar strings. In addition, a deliberate spatial contradiction allows the fruit to nestle in the curve of the guitar as if in a fruit bowl, creating a sensory link between vision, taste and sound. Gallery label, September 2004
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