I knew immediately when I viewed Flowers by Juan Gris that I was looking at a coffee cup. What I did not know was that there was a second coffee cup until I visited The Met online which described the painting this way:
“This collage represents a woman’s marble-topped vanity table, with a tilting oval mirror that reflects wallpaper printed with stylized Art Nouveau orchids. A vase of roses is shown amid a coffee cup and morning paper. The woman clearly has company: camouflaged within the scene are a second coffee cup, a stemmed glass, a bottle, and a pipe.” The Met
Who was Juan Gris?
The quick answer is that his full name was José Victoriano Carmelo Carlos González-Pére. Born in Madrid in 1887, Juan Gris studied mathematics, physics, and mechanical drawing. His creative spirit felt stifled within the rigidity of academia, prompting him to use his talent for drawing in the study of art. His destiny was to become one of the leading figures in Cubist painting.
According to The Art Story, (which is a marvelous on-line resource for the history of art and artists – one that I highly recommend)
“One of Gertrude Stein’s favorite artists, and the only Cubist talented enough to make Picasso uncomfortable, Juan Gris built upon the foundations of early Cubism and steered the movement in new directions. A member of the tight-knit circle of avant-garde artists working in Paris, Gris adopted the radically fragmented picture spaces of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, imparting to his works a bold, graphic look. Gris’s paintings are immediately distinguishable from theirs, informed by his background as an illustrator, with a slick, almost commercial appearance, and crisp design elements throughout.”
This painting has set me on a course to learn more about Cubism, which was an early 20th-century avant-garde art movement. It started around 1907 and was created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, which employs geometric shapes in depictions of human and other forms.