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Lot Essay
Juan Gris painted Verre, journal et feuillage in the summer of 1915, a watershed year which marks the artist’s shift from Analytical Cubism to the mature and more lyrical Synthetic phase of his distinctive Cubist practice. The present work possesses great potency, with variegated textures and passages of brushwork that coalesce to create the impression of different materials, and which enable the image to supersede its true medium. It is a remarkable example of the unique painterly language developed by Gris against the tumult of the First World War, during which he produced some of the most refined work of his oeuvre, capturing the contradictions and tensions which were fundamental in ushering in new artistic traditions and which makes his art irrefutably modern.
In 1912, Gris followed in the footsteps of his fellow Cubists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and began incorporating new material into his work, contributing to the inauguration of an innovative type of collage known as papier collé. The technique, which involved combining cut and pasted paper with oil paints and drawing materials, enabled Gris to produce dynamic and intriguing still-life compositions which displayed his mastery of the medium. Following a period of extensive experimentation, by the winter of 1914-1915 Gris had grown weary of the format, yet not of the possibilities it presented. Verre, journal et feuillage successfully translates the lessons gleaned from the papier collé into paint, and masterfully fulfills Gris’s desire to soften and enliven the visual impact of his painting. The work belongs to a group of small yet compelling still lifes painted in the summer of 1915 which display the artist’s attempt to galvanize his aesthetic and to bring into play more sensory and ornamental motifs. Painted in oils, the group deftly employs trompe-l’oeil techniques to mimic the appearance of various surfaces and textures, exploring the interaction of different objects and playfully layering planes while remaining deferential to the flatness of the pictorial surface.
Once a novel practice that stimulated the development of his work, collage-making began to lose its appeal as the shadow of war cast itself across Gris’s work and life, and he now read the grim daily news in the same newspapers which he once embedded into his canvases. By the end of 1914, it had become apparent that the violent battles taking place along Europe’s Western Front would not culminate in the swift victory for which many had initially hoped. Paris was subjected to an onslaught of bombardments and nighttime Zeppelin raids, and the inhabitants of the metropolis were experiencing debilitating shortages. Many of Gris’s colleagues, such as Fernand Léger and the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, were serving at the front, and Gris had been particularly alarmed to learn that his close friend Braque had been seriously injured. Gris had his own struggles which hindered him from successfully producing and selling his work during that winter. As a national of neutral Spain, he was not called up to fight, and was ostracized by his Montmartre neighbors for his lack of participation in the military effort. As a young man, Gris had evaded the obligatory service of his native country, and consequently was unable to return to his family home in Madrid to wait out the war. His financial situation was bleak, and he struggled to provide for himself and his wife, Josette. Gris’s longtime dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who was a German national, had fled France at the outbreak of the war and was living in exile in Berlin. Though Kahnweiler was forced to temporarily suspend his monthly stipend as provided in their pre-war contract, their continuing communication contributed to rumors that Gris was a foreign agent.
Léonce Rosenberg, a once erstwhile French antiquities dealer who was the first owner of Verre, journal et feuillage, was enthralled with the Cubists and sought to fill the void left by Kahnweiler and become their most dedicated champion. He made overtures to Gris in early 1915 to acquire his paintings. Although Gris initially held to the terms of his arrangement with Kahnweiler, the latter eventually agreed to suspend these, leaving Gris free to sell his pictures to Rosenberg and to better his situation and standing in the Parisian art market. This support was a crucial factor which encouraged Gris to resume painting in the spring of 1915, and which would elevate Rosenberg’s standing as one of the foremost dealers of modern art. By the middle of that summer, Gris was completing new canvases at an accelerated pace, and these months would end up as some of the most productive in his entire career.
Verre, journal et feuillage displays Gris’s interest in blurring the transition between exterior and interior spaces through the subtly radiant effects of light, which Gris skillfully allows to encroach on an amalgamation of objects. The composition is treated in shifting shades of both warm and cool hues, and the softer tones of blues, greens, and pinks which were newly introduced into the artist’s palette during this period. The painting is astonishing in its tactility, with a diversity of forms suggesting different textures, materials, and surfaces. Gris’s ambition to add realism and physicality to his work led him to briefly mix ash, sawdust, or sand into his paint mixtures, the latter of which is present in this instance. These richly worked passages of paint, and the use of speckling to denote glass, would return even more prominently in the works of the following year, though without the airiness, ease, and consistency displayed in works from the summer of 1915. James Thrall Soby noted, "If Gris's mood was unrelentingly black in 1915, as his letters attest, his paintings through some blissful irony became more opulent than before. For sheer variety his work in 1915 is outstanding" (in Juan Gris, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1958, pp. 48 and 50).
In 1912, Gris followed in the footsteps of his fellow Cubists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and began incorporating new material into his work, contributing to the inauguration of an innovative type of collage known as papier collé. The technique, which involved combining cut and pasted paper with oil paints and drawing materials, enabled Gris to produce dynamic and intriguing still-life compositions which displayed his mastery of the medium. Following a period of extensive experimentation, by the winter of 1914-1915 Gris had grown weary of the format, yet not of the possibilities it presented. Verre, journal et feuillage successfully translates the lessons gleaned from the papier collé into paint, and masterfully fulfills Gris’s desire to soften and enliven the visual impact of his painting. The work belongs to a group of small yet compelling still lifes painted in the summer of 1915 which display the artist’s attempt to galvanize his aesthetic and to bring into play more sensory and ornamental motifs. Painted in oils, the group deftly employs trompe-l’oeil techniques to mimic the appearance of various surfaces and textures, exploring the interaction of different objects and playfully layering planes while remaining deferential to the flatness of the pictorial surface.
Once a novel practice that stimulated the development of his work, collage-making began to lose its appeal as the shadow of war cast itself across Gris’s work and life, and he now read the grim daily news in the same newspapers which he once embedded into his canvases. By the end of 1914, it had become apparent that the violent battles taking place along Europe’s Western Front would not culminate in the swift victory for which many had initially hoped. Paris was subjected to an onslaught of bombardments and nighttime Zeppelin raids, and the inhabitants of the metropolis were experiencing debilitating shortages. Many of Gris’s colleagues, such as Fernand Léger and the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, were serving at the front, and Gris had been particularly alarmed to learn that his close friend Braque had been seriously injured. Gris had his own struggles which hindered him from successfully producing and selling his work during that winter. As a national of neutral Spain, he was not called up to fight, and was ostracized by his Montmartre neighbors for his lack of participation in the military effort. As a young man, Gris had evaded the obligatory service of his native country, and consequently was unable to return to his family home in Madrid to wait out the war. His financial situation was bleak, and he struggled to provide for himself and his wife, Josette. Gris’s longtime dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who was a German national, had fled France at the outbreak of the war and was living in exile in Berlin. Though Kahnweiler was forced to temporarily suspend his monthly stipend as provided in their pre-war contract, their continuing communication contributed to rumors that Gris was a foreign agent.
Léonce Rosenberg, a once erstwhile French antiquities dealer who was the first owner of Verre, journal et feuillage, was enthralled with the Cubists and sought to fill the void left by Kahnweiler and become their most dedicated champion. He made overtures to Gris in early 1915 to acquire his paintings. Although Gris initially held to the terms of his arrangement with Kahnweiler, the latter eventually agreed to suspend these, leaving Gris free to sell his pictures to Rosenberg and to better his situation and standing in the Parisian art market. This support was a crucial factor which encouraged Gris to resume painting in the spring of 1915, and which would elevate Rosenberg’s standing as one of the foremost dealers of modern art. By the middle of that summer, Gris was completing new canvases at an accelerated pace, and these months would end up as some of the most productive in his entire career.
Verre, journal et feuillage displays Gris’s interest in blurring the transition between exterior and interior spaces through the subtly radiant effects of light, which Gris skillfully allows to encroach on an amalgamation of objects. The composition is treated in shifting shades of both warm and cool hues, and the softer tones of blues, greens, and pinks which were newly introduced into the artist’s palette during this period. The painting is astonishing in its tactility, with a diversity of forms suggesting different textures, materials, and surfaces. Gris’s ambition to add realism and physicality to his work led him to briefly mix ash, sawdust, or sand into his paint mixtures, the latter of which is present in this instance. These richly worked passages of paint, and the use of speckling to denote glass, would return even more prominently in the works of the following year, though without the airiness, ease, and consistency displayed in works from the summer of 1915. James Thrall Soby noted, "If Gris's mood was unrelentingly black in 1915, as his letters attest, his paintings through some blissful irony became more opulent than before. For sheer variety his work in 1915 is outstanding" (in Juan Gris, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1958, pp. 48 and 50).