1915

Still Life before an Open Window, Place Ravignan

Spanish, 1887 - 1927

Arranged on a table painted to imitate wood graining are a newspaper (with the masthead "Le Journal"), a bottle of Médoc wine, a fruit dish, a glass, and a carafe. Juan Gris rendered the mysterious object at the lower left of the tabletop in imitation marbling, perhaps to suggest a book or a package. The staging of this still life before the artist’s studio window in the Bateau-Lavoir, a building overlooking the Place Ravignan in the Paris artist’s district of Montmartre, sets up its visual drama. Objects appear refracted by shafts of colored light in daring combinations entering through the window. A balustrade with an arabesque design links the still life with the building fronts, railing, streetlight, and canopy of trees in the square beyond. A blue light suffuses the shard-like forms in that city vista with a mysterious softness.