The Star 1925

Andre Masson made this painting called 'The Star', using oil on canvas, sometime in the early to mid twentieth century. The brown and beige tones give the painting an overall earthy feel. Masson is working with muted colours, creating soft geometric shapes that give a Cubist style image of a pear. You can see an interesting effect with the colour, as he allows it to drip downwards, disrupting the still life, introducing something of an automatic element to the process. The brushstrokes are visible, especially in the way he paints the pear, and these suggest a spontaneous, almost impulsive application of paint. Look at the different forms that the pear takes on – sometimes in the foreground, sometimes receding. The semi-transparent effect builds a depth that defies the constrictions of its Cubist structure. Masson was part of the Surrealist movement. Think of someone like Giorgio de Chirico, and you might recognise this same feeling of floating between dreams.