Glass and Bottles

1912 was the year Paris finally got a proper look at Cubism. Picasso and Braque, who had taken it furthest, sold quietly through a dealer and stayed out of the big public salons, so when curious Parisians turned up to see what all the arguing was about, it was younger painters like Gris who represented the new style on the walls. This picture comes from exactly that moment. A glass and a few bottles, the stock furniture of a cafe table, are taken apart into flat overlapping planes and set down in a tight range of greys, ochres and blacks. There is almost no colour to pull attention away from the structure. The objects never fully dissolve. A curved rim here, the shoulder of a bottle there stay legible, just enough to tell what is standing on the table.