In the Tate Collection, Picasso’s small collage from 1913 is one of the most historically and visually dense works around. In the spirit of Dada and pastiche, Picasso arranges a still life of a bottle, a guitar, and newspaper with a variety of sundry materials, and in a few simple gestures invites a world of shifting symbols and doors. Notice how the patterned wall paper can be seen as the back wall of the room, an open window or the as part of the table. The right-hand void of black does a similar, even more ambiguous twisting of meaning, almost representing something at times while tempting meaninglessness. The bottle could be itself or a gun, although I don’t buy into the reading that these collages are subtly political. And then there is the newspaper, both real and a representation at the same time -- a truly revolutionary moment that continues to feed our vision today.
In this work, we get the full brash genius of Picasso. There are elements of both analytic and synthetic cubism present. Picasso both builds from arbitrary shapes as well as shifts the perspective of known forms. At the time, Picasso was pushing cubism to its decadent breaking point. In works completed at the same time, we see the pliability of Picasso's approach to art. He was an artist who could use the pointalism of Seurat as wallpaper while using the day's paper to create a classical still life.
In this work, we get the full brash genius of Picasso. There are elements of both analytic and synthetic cubism present. Picasso both builds from arbitrary shapes as well as shifts the perspective of known forms. At the time, Picasso was pushing cubism to its decadent breaking point. In works completed at the same time, we see the pliability of Picasso's approach to art. He was an artist who could use the pointalism of Seurat as wallpaper while using the day's paper to create a classical still life.