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Guitar in Front of the Sea

Juan Gris1925

Museo Reina Sofia

Museo Reina Sofia
Madrid, Spain

This painting from 1925 would be one of the last to be painted by Juan Gris; in its simplicity, however, Guitar in Front of the Sea maintains the ideas of 1915. A table with a guitar on it, sheet music or a book, a playing card, a piece of fruit and newspaper with a window open to the blue sky, the sea with a sailboat and some mountains. The table is the windowsill that frames the guitar and extends to the newspaper, which, since it is folded in the air, acts as part of the window frame. The sheet music or book is raised, forming another volume of planes in which the playing card and piece of fruit stand out, while the guitar, now both flat and deep at the same time, is segmented.
The painting gains in compositional simplicity and visual impact, having left behind the technical and formal complexity of 1915, but not the complexity of its meaning.

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  • Title: Guitar in Front of the Sea
  • Creator: Juan Gris
  • Creator Death Place: Boulogne-sur-Seine, Île-de-France, France
  • Creator Birth Place: Madrid, Spain
  • Date Created: 1925
  • Style: Cubism
  • Provenance: Bought, 1978
  • Physical Dimensions: w650 x h540 mm
  • Original Title: La guitare devant la mer
  • Type: Painting
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
Museo Reina Sofia

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