Glass, Newspaper, and Die
Pablo Picasso Spanish
Not on view
Picasso constructed this relief inside a shallow wooden box, which approximates the frames that enclose Renaissance reliefs by the likes of Lorenzo Ghiberti. The fluted wineglass, carved from a rough scrap of wood, is seen both straight on and from above, as in a Cubist painting. The top of the die is sliced off in a spoof of steep linear perspective. For the newspaper, Picasso repurposed a powdered-milk tin, cutting and crumpling it as if it were paper. He used its embossed lettering to represent printed text but painted the letters of the masthead, [LE] JO[UR]NAL, by hand. Straying beyond the box’s threshold, it parodies the curling documents of trompe l’oeil paintings, whereas everything else undermines the very notion of illusionism.
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