Glass and Water Bottle 1917

Juan Gris made "Glass and Water Bottle" with oil on canvas, using materials that were very familiar in the fine arts. However, the genius of Cubism was to take a well-worn medium and completely defamiliarize it. Gris built up planes of color with clear brushstrokes, and the composition is radically flattened, though it still suggests a tabletop. Gris engaged with both the still life tradition, and the craft of painting. The interplay of light and shadow suggests volume, but the fracturing of forms creates a deliberately distorted perspective. This is not mimetic representation, but a conceptual inventory. Gris is interested in the nature of perception itself, not the slavish reproduction of observed reality. He elevates the everyday to a subject worthy of aesthetic contemplation, closing the gap between the mundane and the artistic. "Glass and Water Bottle" invites us to look closely, and question the way we see the world around us.