Seated Peasant Woman 1918

Juan Gris made this painting, Seated Peasant Woman, we don’t know exactly when, but you can see he was busy trying to see the world in a new way. The earthy tones in this painting are gorgeous, and the way the light kind of bounces off the stripes in her dress? I love the whole thing. Gris's surfaces are smooth but you can still see the brushstrokes which lets you know that this is an object he made with his hands. The colours, the browns, creams and blues, they are not just colours, but more like geometric forms. The way he builds up the composition in layers, it is like he is building an entire world from scratch. Her hand looks like a paper cutout, or a collection of planes, each of which fits together to create the shape. I think it's really interesting how he took something as simple as a seated woman and broke it down into these abstract shapes. You could see that Picasso’s influence and his own particular take on cubism is there too! I love that art is like this ongoing conversation, everyone borrowing and riffing off each other.