Guitar, Sheet Music, and Wine Glass
Pablo Picasso
1912
Collection of The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio
The increased separation and distinction seen in Still Life on a Piano becomes increasingly obvious in Picasso’s musical collages. It was the autumn following Picasso’s return from his 1912 summer in Céret that the artist began his collage work – the pinnacle method of merging separate objects together into one. This is evident in his Guitar and Sheet Music (1912) and Guitar, Sheet Music, and Wine Glass (1912) in which he created the guitar using distinct pieces of cloth, newspaper, wallpaper, sheet music, etc. (Shaw-Miller 99). As each component stands out, the geometric shapes are highlighted. We see more clearly than in his previous Cubist paintings how the individual shapes interact to form the guitar. Moreover, the trend toward increasing color is just as conspicuous. The bright colors, evident in the 1913 Man with Guitar, provide a striking contrast to the dull tones of Picasso’s first Céret guitar paintings. As we concluded about the 1913 Man with Guitar, this new color scheme may be the effect of the sardana’s energy.
In the newspaper clipping of Le Journal that Picasso used in his Guitar, Sheet Music, and Wine Glass, the headline is “La Bataille S’est Engagé� (“The battle has commenced�). Critics have claimed that it is a reference to Picasso’s defense of Cubism, which had been criticized by officials (Shaw-Miller 102). What was it that motivated Picasso to fuel his revolution on art? As discussed, it was the Catalan music that inspired him to experiment with Cubism. In the Céret music, Picasso heard a genre of music that he found inspiring and worthy to be imitated. It was through his pursuit of capturing the complexities of this music that Picasso decided to challenge the accepted art practices of the day and create the Cubist movement.
Guitar and Sheet Music
Pablo Picasso
1912
Private collection