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PARTISA REVIEW
played by Braque in the formation ofCubism.
It
goes without saying that an exhibition doesn't have to present a new
slant on its subject in order to command our interest. Indeed, one of the real
virtues of Rubin's show is that it didn't proselytize. Rather than trying to get
us to look at Cubism in a particular light, it simply tried to get us to look.
Typical of the show's pleasures was the chance to see a long-separated se–
ries ofworks from Picasso's summer home in the fishing village of Cadaques.
Seen one at a time, in their respective homes in France, Switzerland,
Czechoslovakia, and elsewhere, the Cadaques works might seem like so
many ordinary vacation-time sketches. Yet, taken together, they're amazing.
Five of them depict a fishing boat docked at a harbor; at first the boat is
drawn realistically, but then in later works it becomes abstract.
As
we watch
this fishing boat dissolve from a solid object into a haze ofjagged planes, it's
as if we're watching the whole adventure of Cubism compressed into five
works. "Pioneering Cubism" was full ofclassic moments like this one. It was a
show that seems so synonymous with greatness that trying to review it is
like trying to review
Ulysses.
For all of these reasons I've decided not to approach it here in the
standard way. What follows does not
try
to offer a comprehensive discussion
of the exhibition, nor will it present the usual background information. It won't
tell you how or when Picasso and Braque met, or rehash that quaint idea
about Picasso and Braque being temperamental opposites - one slow and
methodical, the other astonishing in his facility and productivity - who came
together to achieve something neither could have achieved on his own. And
it won't look at Cubism in relation to the art of our times (it has no relation,
though that's not the fault of Cubism, but ofour times). Rather it will consider
several questions that remain unanswered.
What ever happened to Juan Gris?
Not that long ago, when people
thought about Cubism's early years, they thought about three key players:
Picasso, Braque, and Juan Gris. When did the triumvirate shrink into a duo?
Hardly anyone thinks about Gris anymore. one of his pictures or collages
were included in "Pioneering Cubism." It's as ifhe had never existed.
Is this an injustice? In some ways, no. Gris wasn't essential to the
founding of Cubism. His exact relation to the movement is by now well-doc–
umented: He arrived in Paris in 1906, after working as a commercial illus–
trator in Madrid, and promptly installed himself in the dilapidated studio
building in the rue Ravignan where Picasso lived. In the next few years, as
Picasso and Braque went about the business of inventing Cubism, Gris con–
tinued with his commercial work. Then, in 1911, he started painting seri–
ously. An analytically-minded artist, he quickly assimilated the lessons of Cu–
bism and went on to help instigate the collage revolution that began in 1912.
Gris has been called the "conscience" of the movement, and this label fits him.
Yet he didn't invent any of Cubism's most characteristic features, which is
