The Pot of Strawberry Jam 1917

Juan Gris assembled this still life of synthetic cubism with oils on canvas. Look at the dark palette, punctuated by gray and brown hues, and the way shapes interlock and overlap like a collage, yet rendered with the smooth touch of oil paint. I can imagine Gris shuffling around these elements, bottle, jam pot, newspaper… trying out new arrangements of shapes, seeing how they play off each other. There’s something playful and provisional about this, like a jazz riff on a table top. What did he make of the labels, 'Fraises' for strawberries and another for ‘Vin’? The surface is relatively flat, almost seamless, but the forms are not. You see the tilted angles and how they catch the light, creating a sense of depth and space. This is a conversation between what is, and what could be. Like Braque and Picasso, Gris takes an everyday object and transforms it into something new. And that’s the magic of painting, isn’t it?