The Pot of Strawberry Jam

The subject here is a pot of strawberry jam, and in 1917 that was not a small thing. Paris was in the fourth year of the war, food was rationed and sugar hard to come by, so a full jar of preserved fruit on the table was a modest comfort worth painting. Gris gives it the same serious treatment as any guitar or bottle, breaking the pot, the table and the things around it into flat, fitted planes of colour. He had a real fondness for the plain furniture of a room, cups, newspapers, coffee grinders, jars, the things actually in front of him rather than grand motifs. The jam keeps the picture domestic and close to hand. You can still read the round pot and its lid inside the geometry, an ordinary object set down on the table and carefully taken apart.