Les Pommes 1924

Juan Gris made this painting, Les Pommes, with oil on canvas. Look at those blues and browns, and how they meet, and how those apples just sit there, all still-life-like. I think about Juan, maybe he’s staring at these apples for hours, or maybe he's just remembering them from the day before at the market, trying to get it just right. And what is 'right' anyway? It’s all a feeling, isn’t it? A blue shadow here, a brown edge there, and suddenly—bam—you've got an apple. The paint is thick, juicy almost, just like the fruit. It's like he’s wrestling with those shapes, pushing them around until they land in the right spot. You can almost feel the push and pull, the back-and-forth of his process. We’re all just trying to figure out what it means to put something down, right? Painters, we’re always talking to each other, even across time, trading secrets and challenging each other. It's one big, messy conversation, full of questions, and a lot of paint.