The Cup of Coffee
Pablo Picasso Spanish
Not on view
Picasso did not fully adhere the brilliant blue paper (the silhouette of the rectangular instrument), allowing it to rise along the deckled left side. He then blanketed the resulting shadow with hand-drawn sfumatura (blending), literally blurring the real and the fake. The differences are almost indiscernible, prompting the urge “to see” by lifting the paper. Picasso’s pronounced shading under the white coffee cup also momentarily casts doubt, stimulating the false perception of high relief. The Cubists often applied such eye-tricking chiaroscuro around the edges of their cutouts. Having introduced a radical material realism into a picture, they undercut it with old-fashioned illusionism. The fragment of wallpaper imitating Islamic tiles signifies the background wall and creates its own optical game of projecting and receding planes.
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