“The objects are elevated to the dignity of types, shielded from the hazards of the particular […], in their absoluteness. […] Gris is now revealed as a pittore classico.”

According to writer Gertrude Stein, “the only real cubism is that of Picasso and Juan Gris. Picasso created it and Juan Gris permeated it with his clarity and his exaltation.”¹ Gris embarked on his personal approach to Cubist painting in 1911-12 but had been in contact with Picasso since 1906. In 1916, during the war, he remained in Paris and kept his studio in the Bateau Lavoir. He painted but refrained from showing his works, not least because of the exclusive contract signed on 18 April with Léonce Rosenberg after Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler was forced out of business for reasons connected with World War I. In a letter dated 15 May 1916 to his new dealer, who was then serving as an interpreter with the Royal Flying Corps, he observed that in his latest works: “There is more expression and more life than before […]. This new approach unquestionably leads me to depart from cold intellect and find more joy in feeling.”² These words pinpoint the crucial moment leading - as Kahnweiler stated many years later - to the period regarded by many as the most rigorous in his art. From 1916 to 1919, when still lifes predominated and he painted very few portraits, everything is laid out on a flat surface. The emblematic objects presented there are no longer represented as seen from a multiplicity of viewpoints but as subordinated to the general structure in an architectural composition. As Kahnweiler put it: “The objects are elevated to the dignity of types, shielded from the hazards of the particular […], in their absoluteness. […] Gris is now revealed as a pittore classico. […] In the always serious art of Juan Gris, these works […] are distinguished by a wholly particular austerity and sobriety manifested both in draughtsmanship and in colour. The Castilian ardour that dresses in black, denies itself any sparkle and looks like coldness to the superficial observer is to be found precisely here.”³ 

It was in July, in a period of intense effort, that Gris produced the drawing Carafe et bol (Carafe and Bowl) for the painting of the same name (oil on panel, fig. 1), which also belonged to the Rosenberg Collection.⁴ As he wrote to the dealer in a letter dated 31 July 1916: “Apart from my work, I am very dispirited. I am already quite isolated but would like to be so even more. In any case, I am doing a lot of work, and this makes up for everything.”⁵ While the drawing contains elements absent from the painting, some of the details repeated, like the shadows at the base of the bowl and the grafting of the plane onto the carafe, are developed minutely. The objects are recognisable and display resistance to the excessive multiplication and disintegration of lines. They all reappear, often in pairs, in the many other still lifes of the period: the bowl, the carafe, the grapes barely outlined in the fruit bowl, the French newspaper Le Journal with the letters of the headline partially concealed and the open book with curved lines of text. And then we have the environmental points of reference: the cupboard door, a recurrent item of the Cubist vocabulary (often with application of simulated wood paper), and the table with the characteristic shape of the leg, both slanted to enhance the diagonal running all the way through the composition. 

While the planes are distinguished by means of colour in the paintings, the transitions are marked in drawings like Carafe et bol with thicker lines, which make their interpenetration immediately intelligible. Drawings of great starkness and clarity like this one alternate with others of equal precision and coherence but a softer and more nuanced handling of line. 

Carafe et bol belonged to the collection of Marie-Louise Jeanneret at least until 1977.⁶ Cerruti may have bought it shortly afterwards, when he was presumably in contact with the Genevabased dealer (see Carlo Carrà, Campagna toscana, 1929, p. 816). Cerruti’s library contains a copy of the catalogue of the major retrospective Juan Gris. Pinturas y dibujos 1910-1927 held in 2005 at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. 

Valeria D’Urso 

¹ Stein 2010, p. 92.

² “Il y a plus d’expression et plus de vie qu’avant […]. Sûrement cette orientation nouvelle me fait négliger un peu la froide intelligence pour avoir plus de joie dans les sensations” (Juan Gris 1999, p. 25).

³ “Les objets […] sont élevés à la dignité du type, soustraits aux hasards du particulier […], dans leur ‘absolu’. […] Gris se révèle à présent peintre classique”; “Dans l’oeuvre toujours grave de Juan Gris, ces oeuvres […] se distinguent par une austérité, une sobriété toutes particulières, qui se manifestent autant dans le dessin que dans la couleur. C’est bien là cette ardeur castillane qui s’habille de noir, s’interdit tout éclat, et qui paraît de la froideur à l’observateur superficiel” (Kahnweiler 1990, pp. 228, 232-323).

⁴ Cooper 1977, vol. I, p. 274, no. 183a; p. 275 fig. 183a.

⁵ “À part mon travail je suis très découragé. Je suis déjà assez isolé mais je voudrais l’être encore davantage. Enfin je travaille beaucoup et cela me console de tout” (Juan Gris 1999, p. 35).

⁶ Cooper 1977, vol. I, p. 274, no. 183a.