Still life 1947

This still life was painted by Pablo Picasso, with oil on canvas. Looking at the way these shapes and colors are assembled, I’m thinking about how Picasso made this picture. Perhaps he was shuffling forms around, arranging and re-arranging them, searching for some kind of visual rhyme or off-kilter harmony. The colors are quite muted – mostly greys and blacks – except for that bold dash of blue. I’m drawn to the overall quietness of the composition, which is offset by the way that hard-edged blue shape jabs into the center of the canvas. It reminds me of how he might have been in conversation with other painters like Braque, thinking through the problems of representation and abstraction and how to break down objects into their essential forms. Ultimately, this painting feels like an experiment, an embodied expression of his curiosity. It embraces ambiguity and uncertainty.