Still life with bottle of rum 1911

This is one of Picasso’s Cubist paintings – a still life made of faceted shapes in a muted palette. The rum bottle only emerges after a bit of looking! I think it would have been exciting to be Picasso at this time. You know, cubism being a total game changer. This wasn’t about representing things literally. More like he was pulling apart an object – the titular rum bottle – and rearranging it in new and unexpected ways. It’s like he’s saying, ‘I don’t have to copy what I see. I can build a new kind of seeing.’ I really respond to this impulse! The way he’s built up the layers – almost like a collage – you can feel him figuring out how to see and how to think about seeing. It makes you realize artists are constantly talking to one another, challenging each other across time, reinventing what painting can be.