Gris, Juan
The Mountain "Le Canigou"
Gris, Juan
The Mountain "Le Canigou"
1921 (120 Kb); Oil on canvas, 65 x 100 cm (25 5/8 x 39 3/8 in); Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (DC 384)
Gris continued to elaborate the theme of the open window in 1921, concluding with The Mountain Le Canigou painted at Ceret in December. In it he returned to the juxtaposition of interior and exterior as seperate and distinct. Whereas a sail became a triangle in The View Across The Bay, the mountain now assumes that form, much as it had for Kandinsky and Klee starting about 1910. Although there is no reason to beleive that Gris knew of the works and writings from Munich, it is a remarkable coincidence to find him manipulating his favorite form of the Blaue Reiter artists in a similar manner. Perhaps Cézanne lies at the heart of those usages. At any rate, by making the mountain triangular and regularizing the form of the guitar, he was rendering the poetic juxtaposition in terms of object-emblems. Diagrammatic, too, is nature, as a blue triangle containg the triangular mountain and the white swatch of cloud. Opposed are the curved lines of the guitar. It and an open book epitomixe art. As usual, the door is present both as a barrier and a means of entry.