Seltzer Bottle and Glass 1917

This is Juan Gris's *Seltzer Bottle and Glass*, made with oil on canvas. I imagine Gris starting with the blue of the seltzer bottle, maybe finding that cerulean and then letting the rest of the painting grow from there. The painting is all about geometric forms, fractured perspectives, and muted colors. The cubist language here is very interesting. I think he’s also exploring the tension between representation and abstraction. He takes these everyday objects and then fractures them, forcing us to see them in a new way. I bet Gris was thinking about how we perceive reality, how we construct meaning from fragmented information. Like Picasso and Braque, he’s pushing the boundaries of what painting can be. He lets the object become a series of shapes and lines. It's like he’s saying, "Look, I’m not just copying what I see, I'm creating something new." And, like, that's what painting should be all about.