Frames of Reference: "Table" and "Tableau" in Picasso's Collages and Constructions Author(s): Christine Poggi Source: Art Journal, Vol. 47, No. 4, Revising Cubism (Winter, 1988), pp. 311-322 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/776981 Accessed: 07/09/2010 18:33

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http://www.jstor.org Frames of Reference:"Table" and "Tablea u" in Picasso's Collages and Constructions

By Christine Poggi

In the spring of 1912, Picasso pasted a piece of oilcloth printed with a trompe-l'oeil chair-caning pattern to the surface of a small oval canvas repre- senting a cafe still life (Fig. 1). This work, which he also framed with a coarse rope, has acquired legendary sta- tus in the history of art as the first deliberately executed collage; the first work of fine art, that is, in which materi- als appropriatedfrom everyday life, rel- atively untransformed by the artist, intrude upon the traditionally privileged domain of painting.' Picasso's Still Life with Chair-Caning challenged some of the most fundamental assumptions about the nature of painting inherited by Western artists from the time of the Renaissance, including our understand- ing of how works of art exist in the world. This paper will address the ways in which Picasso's collages undermine both classical and "modernist" models for understanding the ontological status of works of art, by instituting an ambig- uous play with frames and framing motifs, as well as with the relation of table (the plane of actuality) and Fig. 1 Pablo Picasso, Still Life with Chair-Caning, spring 1912, oil and oilcloth tableau (the plane of illusion). stuck on oval canvas, framed with rope, 10/2 x 133/4".Paris, Musee Picasso. The two most frequently invoked paradigms for explaining how works of innovations of Cubism, especially by Picasso's collages, however, render art should be regarded are the window those claiming that Cubism represents a the project of realism problematic by (or mirror), a model most clearly articu- superior mode of realism, often called undermining the viewer's ability to lated in the Renaissance theories of "conceptual realism." Cubist works are experience or read a work through the Alberti, and the self-sufficient object, a frequently said to exemplify this new application of a single, compelling para- model that can be traced at least as far mode of realism by rejecting the window digm. Instead, his collages, beginning back as the eighteenth century to Kant's paradigm in favor of the conceptual with the Still Life with Chair-Caning, early modernist aestheticism. Both of representation of multiple views, or by often juxtapose the two prevailing para- these apparently opposed models lay emphasizing the material aspects of the digms-the window and the object-so claim to realism: the window by provid- work of art as a self-sufficient object. that each is defined in relation to the ing a convincing view of reality, the Yet this effort to see in Cubism a new other. Picasso refers to the model of object by exemplifying its own material mode of realism is ultimately a way of painting as window through the vertical reality. Not surprisingly, these models taming Cubism by recasting it in the plane of the tableau. This is the plane have been used to explain the formal mold of a traditional project. that corresponds to normal upright

Winter 1988311 viewing posture, and therefore is the essential information about the vailing standards of pictorial unity, both classical plane of pictorial illusion. subject as he could. When he sub- academic and avant-garde. The notion Picasso refers to the self-sufficient divides and facets form, it is in of pictorial unity was a crucial factor in object through the horizontal plane of an attempt to break through to its the critical attempt to define the onto- the table, the plane of real objects that inner structure.... One gets the logical status of the Cubist work. For the exist in three-dimensional space. The impression that Picasso is striving Cubist work to assert its material and juxtaposition of table and tableau, and for some ultimate pictorial truth, formal self-sufficiency, it had to appear its implications for the realist inter- some absolute representation to be internally coherent, governed by pretation of Picasso's collages, are the of reality.2 laws derived from the medium itself. of this subjects essay. Elsewhere in his asserts Yet, for the Cubist work to be inter- text, Golding as that "the Cubists saw their as preted "conceptually"realist, the sta- of the most assertions paintings and of the referent had to One frequent constructed objects having their own bility actuality made about the Cubist work of art be Pictorial then took the independent existence, as small, self- posited. unity is that it redefined the status form of a creative of ontological contained worlds, not reflecting the out- "synthesis" objec- of the work of art. No longer modeled on side world but it in a com- tively known information. In either case, the classical notion that a is recreating favorable critics tended to see painting pletely new form."3Collage, a early like a window onto the technique Cubist the as transparent invented by Picasso and in 1912, works, including collages, world, Cubist works are said to be con- Braque the ideal of is for Golding "the logical outcome" of exemplifying pictorial unity. ceived as self-sufficient Kahnweiler, for autonomous, this conception of Cubist works as "self- Daniel-Henry example, critics in and described Cubism as on objects. Early particular, contained, constructed objects," for the taking (and indeed some of the artists themselves, inclusion of different materials in col- solving) problems that are "the basic that in the norms tasks of to three emphasized rejecting lages "emphasized in a very concrete painting: represent of imitation the artist was liberated dimensions and color on a flat surface, way their weight and solidity as material from the constraints of both tradition and to them in the of objects."4 Golding does not acknowl- comprehend unity and nature. The Cubist artist that surface." And this was to be thereby edge any slippage or change in his defi- appeared to achieve an unprecedented nition of Cubist realism from 1909 to achieved with "no pleasant 'composi- tion' but godlike power of creation, adding to but the of uncompromising, organically 1912, emphasizes continuity articulated structure."6 the world of things new "objects" whose the aesthetic intent of the movement Kahnweiler in- material affirmed what was sisted, however, that this "return to the presence before and after the invention of collage: described as a new kind of "realism." "... while coll involved new unity of the work of art, in the desire papier to create not Here, however, an essential, recurring methods of work and initiated almost at sketches, but finished and autonomous paradox in the interpretationof Cubism once a new in the art of Picasso organisms,"7be reconciled phase with the function arises. For insofar as the Cubist "ob- and it did not involve fun- representational Braque, any of ject" is taken to exemplify concrete damental of aesthetic.... Cub- painting. change In so being or autonomous self-presence, it ism continued to be an art of its doing, Kahnweiler turned to his realism; recent must refuse the function of matter remained the reading of Kant, which provided subject same, him with a model for representation. as did the interests and intentions of the interpretation This has unno- of Picasso's "great advance made at paradox gone largely the painters."5 ticed by most critics and historians of Similar discussions of the realist Cadaques" in 1910. This advance-the Cubism. Typically, those who assert the intent of Cubist artists dominate much piercing of the closed form-could then be seen as a means of objecthood of Cubist works also assert of the literature on Cubism without combining dif- any ferent that Cubist formal innovations were reference to the contradictions inherent views of objects into a synthetic, intended to the viewer more com- perceptually unified, whole: "Instead of give in this type of analysis. Yet a theory of information about the essential an the plete realism based on the material presence analytical description, painter nature of in the world. can, if he also create in this things everyday of the object as a self-contained world prefers, way These critics and art historians claim a synthesis of the or in the words does not coexist easily with a theory object, that the Renaissance of Kant, 'put together the various con- by rejecting single- of realism based on the quantity of point perspective system and accidental information about the world ceptions and comprehend their variety conveyed in "8 effects of light Cubist artists were able outside the frame. one perception.' For Kahnweiler, to combine different views of the resolution of the conflict between objects, An analysis of Picasso's representa- thus presenting the spectator with what tion and subversion of both traditional representation and structure was one of was known about those rather the great achievements of Cubist objects, and contemporarytheories of realism in paint- than what be his are riddled with might immediately per- his collages will be the subject of this ing, yet explanations ceived. An of this double internal contradictions and fall short of example essay. The invention and early practice invocation of realism occurs in John doing to the self-conscious com- of collage provide an excellent focal justice influential A and ironic wit of Cubist works. Golding's book, Cubism: point for an analysis of Cubist "realism" plexity History and an Analysis, 1907-1914. In because individual elements Nonetheless, the attention he gave to collage this in his his discussion of Picasso's early Cubist have been read both as "real" within the problem writings reveals its works of 1909, Golding writes: context of or importancefor artists and their public in illusory painting drawing the Cubist and as for a not period. Picasso's dismissal of traditional signs reality physically Picasso The double status of these ele- himself frequently called perspective had been the result of present. attention to the ments the essential issue of pictorial unity his interest in investigating the recapitulates para- the motif of the render- dox of the Cubist work which through frame, nature of solid form and of a desire itself, its form of to it in a more thor- appears to exist both as a material ing problematic place, express new, appearance, and, ultimately, its mean- and object (and to call attention to itself as ough comprehensive, pictorial ing. His manipulations of the actual Picasso was anxious to such) and as a mode of representation. way.... frames of his collages, and of in each as much In addition, Picasso's collage works framing present image motifs, however, suggest a challenge to, dramatize the Cubist challenge to pre- 312 Art Journal hemp frames in popular chromolitho- especially tables, chairs, and couches, in graphs, which Picasso is known to have bourgeois homes of the late nineteenth collected,'? or by the use of rope to frame and early twentieth centuries. A photo- souvenir mirrors in port towns." The graph of Picasso's studio in 1909 shows rope, then, like the oilcloth, is a ready- Braque sitting next to a round table made, mass-produced material asso- covered with a fringed tablecloth similar ciated with popular rather than fine art, to those that could be seen in wealthier and is used by Picasso to simulate artisa- homes of the time (Fig. 2). The presence nal skill. The rope, a "low"- or even of a cheap version of such a decorative "non"-art material, serves to parody the object in Picasso's studio is consistent beveled wooden frames that tradition- with what we know of Picasso's "mania ally signify "high art," just as the inclu- for collecting" objects that "would not sion of oilcloth parodies the value accor- have been out of place in the concierge's ded the medium of oil painting itself. office." This, Fernande Oliver tells us, The prominant, gestural smears of oil "was part of their charm for him."'4 paint across the smooth surface of the In one of several canvases to represent oilcloth further emphasize this ironic the still-life table with fragments of juxtaposition of means. rope, The Chess Pieces (Fig. 3), the In calling attention to the frame, how- rope serves as a framing device in two ever, Picasso gave it a further paradoxi- competing senses. The fragments of cal function. The rope, in marking the rope, drawn illusionistically in the midst Fig. 2 Georges Braque in Picasso's edge of the collage as a picture of a cafe of an otherwise hermetic system of frac- studio, c. 1909. New Haven, Yale table, also makes the oval canvas itself tured pictorial forms, signify both the University, Yale Collection of synonymous with that table, thus con- framing edges of the depicted still-life American Literature, Beinecke Rare flating the literal object with the table table and the curtain loop in the upper Book and Manuscript Library. that it represents.'2 As early as in the right corner of the work. As curtain loop spring of 1911, a year before the Still and tassel, the rope refers to the Renais- rather than an exemplification of, the Life with Chair-Caning, Picasso had sance model of painting, in which the ideal of the unified work. In classical occasionally defined the edges of the canvas is seemingly transformed into a painting, the frame plays the important tables in his still lifes with twisted ropes, transparent or open window. The cur- role of defining the boundary between at times including the fringe of a table- tain loop also suggests the traditional the fictional, unified world of the paint- cloth, so that rope, sometimes with repoussoir, a framing element that cre- ing or drawing and the real world fringes or tassels, came to denote the ates the illusion of depth by appearing outside. The frame thus plays a dual presence of a table.'3 This use of the rope to lie in the forward plane of the canvas, role: it establishes the difference of the motif would probably have been readily so that other objects may appear pushed fiction within the frame from the reality understood by Picasso's contemporaries, back behind it. Thus it is a motif asso- beyond it, but it does this in order to since fringes, tassels, and swags were ciated with the idea of viewing as revela- define this fictional world as a coherent, frequently used to decorate furniture, tion, of seeing into depth as a mode of autonomous reality. Picasso's frames, however, frequently appear within his works, thereby disrupting their internal unity and the clear distinction between the worlds of reality and fiction.9Picas- so's frames are curiously similar to his collage elements-newspaper clippings, playing cards, wallpaper fragments, parts of musical scores-in that both knowledge. Artists have frequently used by painting in the edges of a rectangular curtains for this purpose, and Picasso's table, thickly across the horizontal lower appropriation of this conventional de- edge and more thinly in a diagonal that vice is particularly significant in the implies recession at the right. Insofar as Cubist context. Seeing the rope as a the edge of the table is construed as a reference to traditional notions of trans- frame, these alternate borders of the parency and illusion clarifies the irony depicted table may be read as a further of Picasso's depiction of the fragment of instance of Picasso's use of "inner rope in what has been described as frames." The edges of the table, in trompe-l'oeil realism, but which in part synonymouswith the enclosing bor- its crudeness seems more like a deliber- der of canvas, reappear within that bor- ately naYvecaricature of trompe-l'oeil. der, thus dismantling the traditional The "naturalism" of the style of draw- binary oppositions of inside/outside, ing used to depict the rope is hardly work of art/exterior world. The intru- eye-fooling, and can be called trompe- sion of the cane-printed oilcloth operates l'oeil only in comparison with the geo- similarly: it subverts the conventional metric drawing of the rest of the work. role of the frame to define a coherent The curtain loop and tassel, therefore, border within which the work should be stand rather as emblems or representa- compositionally and materially unified. tions of trompe-l'oeil illusion and do not perform its traditional functions: the The Still Life with Chair-Caning of metaphorical curtain fails to reveal a the spring of 1912 remained a rela- 4 Pablo Violin and coherent view into an illusory depth Fig. Picasso, tively isolated experiment in Picasso's beyond. On the contrary, the objects and Newspaper, fall 1912, oil and sand on oeuvre until his collaboration with x 20". Private Collection. forms depicted here and in Picasso's glass, 253/4 Georges Braque during the fall of that other works of this period appear to year led the two artists to explore a wide hover in a shallow, ambiguously variety of collage techniques. At this defined space. time Picasso made an unusual collage, Picasso's irony is not confined, how- Violin and Newspaper (Fig. 4), as part ever, to references to the illusionistic of a series of works on the theme of a devices of the past. In The Chess Pieces, musical instrument hanging on a wall. the rope motif serves also to establish Painted on glass, Violin and Newspaper the framing edge of the table. While the again takes up the motif of the window, canvas is the literal support of Picasso's and is interesting to compare with an picture, the table is the figurative sup- earlier work by Braque, The Portuguese port of the still-life objects that rest of 1911 (Fig. 5). Braque's painting is upon it; by "framing" his table, Picasso usually described as representing a Por- drew a parallel between these two, tuguese guitarist, and, in fact, is some- equally metaphorical, supports or times said to have been inspired by a grounds of his art. The curtain loop and particular guitarist he had seen in Mar- tassel, referring to the traditional notion seilles.16But, as Jean Laude has argued, of the canvas as transparent vertical Braque represented this guitarist as if plane, hovers like a discarded talisman seen through a cafe window in such a in the upper corners of these opaque way that the depicted scene seems to pictures. The table edge/frame, refer- coincide with the very pane of the ring to the alternative, modernist con- glass.17That we are looking at the gui- cept of the work of art as material tarist through a cafe window is sug- object, occupying a horizontal plane, gested by the curtain loop and tassel at also appears in fragmentary form. Fig. 5 Georges Braque, The the right, and by the letters and words, In neither sense does the use of the Portuguese, 1911, oil on canvas, 46 x which appear to be advertisements sten- rope motif as a framing device succeed 32". Basel, Kunstmuseum. ciled to a pane of glass. Yet these words, in establishing a definitive metaphorical like the forms of the guitarist, are so for how the work is to be paradigm It have been partly as a means of arbitrarily fragmented that they deny received. The motif thus may rope denotes, the possibility for a literal the illusion of the window's transpar- two models heightening emblematically, conflicting reading of the table as a concrete object, ency and of a clear, readable space for the relation of the viewer to the work that Picasso eventually decided to frame beyond it. Rather, figure and ground of art without the establishing primacy Still with Chair-Caning with an seem to merge in the oscillating play of of one over the other. In these Life explora- actual rope. The ambiguous oval shape opaque and transparent forms. tions of 1911, however, the of opposition of the canvas/table, however, immedi- Picasso's Violin and Newspaper dem- of the tableau to the the vertical plane ately undermines the possibility of a onstrates that once again he has litera- remains a horizontal plane of the table univocal, literal reading since the oval lized what in his own previous work, or of allusion. Nonethe- matter pictorial may represent a round table seen from in Braque's, had remained figurative. Picasso's isolation of this theme in less, an oblique angle, seen, in fact, some- Here the canvas ground has given way such as The Chess Pieces paintings what as a person seated at a caf6 table to an actually transparent pane of glass, demonstrates his early interest in ana- would see it. Moreover, Picasso has which in conventional terms barely the relation of illusion and lyzing object- emphasized the divergence of his oval functions as a ground at all. One of the a function of the of hood as opposition canvas as object from what it represents things this work reveals is that the can- vertical and horizontal planes.15

314Art Journal vas must be opaque in order to operate Newspaper to be framed in a conven- pieces of paper to their canvas grounds convincingly as a figure of transparency. tional way, which would, of course, in order to emphasize the flatness of the For in looking through the "unfinished" greatly diminish the ambiguity this picture plane. This emphasis on flatness parts of the glass, we see a strip of work establishes between reality and is taken as a confirmation of the neces- wainscotting that is part of the wall illusion. One indication that he did not sary, originary flatness of the medium of behind the glass but that in this photo- lies in a photograph of Gertrude Stein's painting itself. Yet such works as Violin graph, which was taken in Picasso's studio taken sometime in late 1912 or and Newspaper call attention to the studio, enters the composition of the 1913 (Fig. 7). In the photograph, sev- ground in order to render it problematic work as a foreign element, thereby dis- eral of Picasso's Cubist paintings and rather than secure. The actual relief of rupting its internal unity and self-suffi- collages hang unframed on quite certain areas and the visibility of objects ciency. Yet this "reality" from outside crowded walls, including a work titled behind the picture plane negate the the picture fails to remain completely Violin,"8which is very similar in compo- homogeneity and flatness of the ground foreign to Picasso's composition since it sition to Violin and Newspaper. The as ideal features of the representational resembles nothing so much as a frame unframed presentation of Violin and field. Any interpretation of Picasso's and, moreover, resembles the painted other works suggests that Picasso proba- collages that emphasizes the artist's fragment of a frame (also possibly dis- bly also intended Violin and Newspaper interest in calling attention to the placed violin strings) above. And in the to remain unframed as part of his strat- medium in order to dramatize its integ- play of multiple substitutions-signaled egy to challenge the fictional coherence rity and primacy is blind to the radical by the word "JOU" (cropped from of the world contained within the pic- disruptive force of Picasso's Cubist "journal")-the wainscotting, which ture. As Gertrude Stein declared in her works. These are not self-contained, uni- appears just beneath the painted violin, 1938 essay on Picasso, with the creation fied works that can be easily assimilated also denotes the edge of a supporting of Cubism "the framing of life, the need to the modernist aspiration for a time- table. Despite its unusual mode of that a picture exist in its frame, remain less, pure, and ideal realm through art.20 appearance, it is not surprising that in its frame was over."19 Rather, collages such as Violin and In a further effort to disrupt the pic- Newspaper demonstrate the failure of torial unity of Violin and Newspaper, the ground to hold, of the frame to Picasso created actual relief in certain enclose, and of the forms to signify a areas by adding sand to the glass signal, unified reality. surface, and by simulating woodgrain Fragments of twined rope, sometimes with thickly applied paint. These tex- with fringe, and molding patterns (both tured areas appeal to the viewer's tactile either drawn or cut out of wallpaper) sense, and the information they yield continue to appear in Picasso's collages remains independent of the information for the next two years. In the spring yielded by the more purely optical or of 1913, Picasso created a series of still pictorial forms. As in Braque's The Por- lifes in which the interchangeability of tuguese, the various parts of the objects these framing motifs is a major theme. depicted in this collage do not cohere in Rope is used to signify the supporting a conventionally organic way. table in The Cup of Coffee (Fig. 8) and It has sometimes been argued by in Guitar, Wineglass, Bottle of Vieux modernist critics such as Clement Marc (Fig. 9), whereas molding from Greenberg that the Cubists pasted flat the border of a wallpaper pattern sig-

Fig. 6 Pablo Picasso, Violin Hanging on a Wall. 1912, oil on canvas, 251/2x 181/8".Kunstmuseum Bern, Hermann and Margrit Rupf-Stiftung.

Picasso would choose to introduce the motif of wainscotting as a kind of "inner frame" in this painting of a vio- lin. A related work of the autumn of 1912, Violin Hanging on a Wall (Fig. 6), represents a violin with painted woodgrain wainscotting and panel to the right. Another section of painted wood- grain, horizontal in format and placed just below the violin, suggests the presence of a supporting table. It would be interesting to know Fig. 7 Gertrude Stein's "Studio," c. 1912-13. New Haven, Yale Collection of whether Picasso intended Violin and American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Winter 1988 315 Guitar on a Table (Fig. 11). In these examples, the wallpaper engenders a double reading analogous to that found in Picasso's Still Life with Chair- Caning: a single pictorial element (here the wallpaper, in the earlier collage the rope) refers to the flat vertical plane of the wall (and by implication, of the picture plane), as well as to the horizontal plane of the table. A related duality appears in Guitar, Wineglass, Bottle of Vieux Marc and in The Cup of Coffee. In both works the wallpaper reinforces a sense of vertical- ity in relation to the horizontality of the table, but the table itself is depicted as both straight-edged and round. The lat- ter duplication of pictorial signifiers also recalls the doubly represented table in the Still Life with Chair-Caning, in which a straight-edged table was fig- ured within the literal border of the oval table. In none of these examples, how- Fig. 10 Pablo Picasso, Bottle of Vieux ever, does the juxtapostion of signifiers Marc, Glass, and Newspaper, spring represent an attempt to synthesize dif- 1913, charcoal, papers pasted and ferent "views" of a table into a single, pinned on paper, 243/4 x 191/4".Paris, synthetic whole; rather the signifiers Musee d'art moderne. remain in the And in both Fig. 8 Pablo Picasso, The Cup of opposition. Coffee, spring 1913, collage with paper, collages the same constructive principle he or she knows very little about them. Is wallpaper, charcoal, and gouache, occurs in the treatment of the guitar, the table round or square? The image 233/4x Washington, National which is composed of disjointed curved remains suspended between these two 133/4". and or in the of a Gallery of Art, Collection of Mr. and straight halves, display contradictory, yet simultaneously af- Mrs. Paul Mellon. circular and squared, modeled and flat, firmed possibilities. Albert Gleizes and neck of the bottle of Vieux Marc in Jean Metzinger had warned their read- Guitar, Bottle Vieux nifies the table in Bottle Vieux Wineglass, of ers about the danger of equivalent for- edge of Marc. The viewer does not acquire a Marc, Glass, and mal oppositions in their treatise of 1912, Newspaper (Fig. 10), wealth of information about these repre- and in the greatly simplified collage, Du Cubisme. In this didactic text they sented objects, but comes to realize that had argued that the science of design consists in instituting relations between straight lines and curves. A pic- ture which contained only straight lines or curves would not express existence. It would be the same with a picture in which curves and straight lines exactly compensated one another, for equivalence is equal to zero.2' According to Gleizes and Metzinger, then, the structural equivalence of straight and curved lines in a work would result in a self-canceling composi- tion, severing rather than affirming the tie to "existence." Ironically, this seems to be the path chosen by Picasso. His pictorial oppositions assert the artifi- ciality of art, and the arbitrary, diacriti- cal nature of its signs. From a number of contemporary accounts, we know that Picasso could be extremely caustic to those who insisted on seeking to estab- lish an essential or true link between art and nature. Andre Salmon, one of Picas- Fig. 9 Pablo Picasso, Guitar, Wineglass, Bottle of Vieux Marc, spring 1913, so's poet friends, reported the following papers pasted and pinned on paper, 19 x 241/2".Paris, Musee Picasso. humorous, but enlightening incident in

316 Art Journal Paris-Journal in 1911: "To a younger and make a photograph of them. I have man, who asks him whether one should kept one of them, and by the force of his draw feet round or square, Picasso vision it was not necessary that he paint replies with much authority: 'There are the picture. To have brought the objects no feet in nature!' The young man fled, together already changed them to other and is still running, to the great joy of things, not to another picture but to his mystifier."22 According to Kahn- something else, to things as Picasso weiler, the young man in question was saw them."26 Metzinger himself.23 An example of this is an assemblage Yet perhaps in answer to all those from 1913 (Fig. 12), an invention of who have observed the systematic arbi- great irony and wit, that in its original trariness of Picasso's forms during form seems to have dispensed with the 1912-14, the artist's remark affirms the enclosing borders of a frame altogether. nonidentity of his art with what it repre- This work comprised a drawing on sized sents. In an interview of 1923, Picasso paper, hung like a backdrop against reconfirmed this principle: "They speak Picasso's studio wall, representing a par- of naturalism in opposition to modern tially masked harlequin, with arms and painting. I would like to know if anyone hands cut out of newspaper and has ever seen a natural work of art., attached with pins and string to a real Nature and art, being two different' guitar, suspended from the ceiling. things, cannot be the same thing. There is also a real table, much like the Through art we express our conception tables in Picasso's still lifes of this peri- of what nature is not."24 od, with the familiar bottle, cup, pipe, Clearly Picasso's pictorial signifiers 11 Pablo Guitar on a and newspaper, all in close proximity to Fig. Picasso, the wall. The in seems refer to everyday objects in the world; Table, 1913. Private Collection. guitar, particular, yet they do so without resembling those remarkably whole and physically pres- objects in the traditional (coherent) ent compared with the fragmentary and, sense or even, as has been claimed, by indeed, "unfinished" drawing, or with resorting to a higher "conceptual" real- the constructed Violin also hanging ism. If realism is understood as a mode from the wall. Yet Picasso inserted this of representation that is in some sense familiar object into a representational true, or adequate to the objects repre- system that forces us to recognize it, sented, Picasso's Cubist collages must paradoxically, as both a real guitar and fail. These works, in particular, are con- as a sign for a guitar. If the most funda- structed through the play of differential mental definition of a sign is that it signifiers: the straight-edged versus the refers to something that is absent, or if, curved, the modeled versus the flat, the in other words, there must be a differ- transparent versus the opaque, the ence between the signifier and the refer- hand-crafted versus the machine-made, ent, the status of the guitar is indeed the literal versus the illusory. The prin- problematic. For the guitar appears to ciple of difference, already operative in be identical to itself, and therefore to the distinction between nature and art, exist, quite simply, as a real or literal thus becomes a principle governing the object, much like the nearby table. The internal organization of the work of art table itself might appear to be indepen- as well. The formal oppositions Picasso dent of this tableau, were it not for the employs are drawn from the history of newspaperlying on it, which is tipped up art25 and from contemporary aesthetic against the wall, drawing it into the theories, such as those of Seurat or realm of fictions, just as the harlequin's arms reach out and Leger, based on "laws of contrast," and Fig. 12 Pablo Picasso, Assemblage newspaper appropri- in this sense are not arbitrary; they with Guitar Player, 1913, no longer ate the guitar to itself. Once inserted belong to a shared pictorial tradition extant, photographof Picasso's studio into the stagelike context of Picasso's and are already imbued with meaning. at 242 boulevard Raspail, Paris, studio, the literalness of the guitar is put These oppositions do, however, point to February-March, 1913. in question; it seems to resemble itself, their own arbitrarinessin relation to the to become a naturalistic mode of repre- thing represented, even as they allow sentation in opposition to the nearby The in Picasso's representation to occur. tendency post-1912 Cubist geometric drawing, much like work for elements to break The question that remains to be asked collage the naturalistic details that appeared in is whether the of formal differ- through literal or figural frames became Picasso's and Braque's most hermetic system marked in his constructions. ences at play in Picasso's Cubist work especially paintings from 1910 to early 1912. The describes a closed field-one that is Most of these extremely fragile works, guitar is also reversed, a position that circumscribedor "framed"-or one that made of humble and unlikely materials, renders it nonfunctional and suggests remained in Picasso's is open to change and rupture, perhaps possession that the guitar is a reflection or repro- the role of the throughout his lifetime, and some are duction of itself,27 rather than a through interpretative known Ger- spectator. The answer to this question only through photographs. uniquely existing object. Picasso's ma- trude Stein recalled that she was can be again "very nipulation of the guitar, and other approachedonly by turning much struck at this when cubism to Picasso's collages, and to the leitmotif period, objects in this assemblage, drives a of the frame as it is in was a little more developed, with the wedge between the literal identity of represented Picasso could those collages. way put objects together these objects, and our perception of

Winter 1988 317 objects arises only in the absence of this frame, with the merger of pictorial, stagelike, and real-life space that existed in the original studio setting. In that setting it might have been possible to regard the guitar and table as real, potentially functional objects. If, how- ever, we introduce a kind of closure or frame, as the photograph does, these objects appear as elements of a predeter- mined system of formal oppositions, as figures of the real, rendered temporarily nonfunctional through Picasso's manip- ulations, and our own constitutive activity as spectators.

lM/ ost of Picasso's subsequent col- lages and constructions introduce Fig. 14 Pablo Picasso, Glass, Die, and the frame as a border to be parodied or Newspaper, spring 1914, construction: transgressed. In Glass, Die, and News- painted wood and tin, h. 81/4".Paris, paper, of spring 1914 (Fig. 14), for Fig. 13 Edouard Manet, The Spanish Musee Picasso. example, cut and twisted sections of a Singer, 1860, oil on canvas, 58 x 45". milk tin, crudely painted to resemble a The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift and of of a pastiche, calls attention to the fact glass fragment newspaper, pro- of William Church Osborn, 1949. the bounded of the verti- that Manet painted a model "posed" in ject from plane his studio.28In Picasso's assemblage the cal tableau, as if to signal a desire to them, thus making things into signs. The studio setting is an even more obvious attain three-dimensional objecthood. role in guitar and table can be read then not feature of the work's presentation.29 Again the frame plays an integral this between only as representations of Picasso's own By transforming the objects in his establishing play illusory which in turn threatens contemporary still lifes but also as an assemblage into signs of prior represen- and real depth, ironic comment on their aspiration to tations, Picasso "reversed" the normal to elide the distinction between painting the status of the real. relation of representation to model, a and sculpture. also of The image of a guitarist holding a relation he reversed once again by tak- In Glass and Bottle of Bass, 1914 Picasso created a reversed guitar may also refer to prior ing the photograph, thereby introducing spring (Fig. 15), a bor- representations in the history of art, a frame and subjecting these objects to mock frame by pasting wallpaper sides of his But particularly Manet's The Spanish Sing- "the force of his vision." The spectator's der to the four picture. frame fails to function er (Fig. 13). Manet's critics had uncertainty regarding the status of these this convincingly observed that the guitar in The Spanish Singer, strung for a right-handed player, was reversed and, further, that the positions of the "guitarist's" hands indicated he did not know how to play this instrument. Picasso may have been initially attracted to Manet's painting because of its Spanish associations, but if it was a precedent for his assemblage, it seems to have been primarily for the "mistakes" noted by Manet's contempo- raries. Given Picasso's own effort to disrupt spatial coherence, it is not sur- prising that he would have been inter- ested in Manet, or that he might choose to refer to just those features of Manet's painting that critics had found most disturbing. What would those critics have said of the chords played by the three-fingered newspaper hands of Pi- casso's harlequin? And of the guitar and table, which are too small in relation to the larger-than-life size drawing on the backdrop? Or of the musician, who appears to have legs incapable of sup- porting him; made of paper and tacked to the support, they have been allowed to slide limply under the table? Finally, Bottle Picasso's guitarist, like Manet's, is Fig. 15 Pablo Picasso, Glass and of Bass, spring 1914, charcoal, pencil, and on depicted in costume. In Manet's paint- India ink, gouache, newspaper, woodblock-printedpapers pasted wood-pulp Collection Pulitzer. ing, the guitarist's costume, something board, 201/4x 253/4".St. Louis, Joseph

318Art Journal jection from the flat plane of the refers, by extension, to "table," as well issued from this view of artistic lan- tableau, while the cheese and sausage as to other smooth, flat surfaces avail- guage as essentially constructed and are revealed as made of rather sloppily able for inscription. By the thirteenth arbitrary, like the rules of a game. Once painted wood. Moreover, the table top century in France, a tableau signified a a motivated relation of pictorial form to itself is tilted upwards, so that it, too, painting on a panel of wood, and eventu- referent had been rejected, Picasso was proves to be subject to the deformations ally, with the rise of the "aesthetic" view able to abandon the related fictions of of perspective.30And this means that the of art in the eighteenth century, the univocal, transparentmeaning (realism) cheese and sausage (like the glass) must self-sufficient, portable easel painting.34 and an organic or perceptual form of be nailed in place. In the end, what is Thus the tabula has historically denoted pictorial unity. Nor do Picasso's collages affirmed is the interchangeability of the both tables and paintings. Perhaps the and constructions affirm an experience terms "literal" and "figurative"-that common origin of table and tableau in of unified selfhood for the viewer who is, the way in which, in a system in the tabula became an enabling insight becomes engaged in the game of inter- which individual terms have no essential for Picasso, one that inspired him to seek pretation. The viewer (player) cannot meaning but only differential values, the a reciprocity or hidden identity in "hold" the perceptually alternating functional identity of opposed terms can objects that had previously seemed to be planes of the table and tableau in mind be revealed. contradictoryin nature. It is this view of at once, just as he or she cannot "read" No interpretation can be regarded as the paradoxical identity of the work of the pictorial forms and the texts of the stable or fixed, and Picasso plays out the art as potentially both table and tableau newspaper clippings at once. consequences of this notion in his col- (whether derived from visual or verbal Picasso's collages call for a continu- lages and constructions with great wit. analysis, or both) that allowed Picasso ously shifting interpretative strategy as Binary oppositions are continually as- to play a game of infinite substitution well as for a shifting visual focus, and serted, then negated, only to reappear in and reversal within the opposition of this must take place over time. This displaced form. Yet Picasso never dis- these terms/objects, as it had been con- process leads to an accretion of mean- places the system of oppositions itself. structed by his contemporaries.This for- ings, but rarely to the sense that one has This play of oppositions eventually mal play reveals a critique of the call for resolved the contradictions or paradoxes assumes the traditional role of the frame the tableau-objet, insofar as it might be presented by the work. The question of itself, to determine which elements construed as making a new claim for the pictorial unity itself is thus displaced belong to the work and which do not. In transparency of the signifier, or "real- from the collage to the experience of the Picasso's Cubist collages, constructions, ism," as Picasso's contemporaries often viewer, where it is suspended and dis- and assemblages, unity is no longer pri- called it. persed in the time of interpretativeanal- marily a question of subject matter, In inventing the Cubist collage, ysis, like a series of moves in a board material, or style-although these con- Picasso put into question many of the game. Picasso himself assumes the role tinue to be important factors in the fundamental assumptions of his Sym- of the master player/dissembler who game. Rather, unity has become a ques- bolist predecessors and, indeed, con- invites the viewer into the scene of play. tion of oppositional formal structures temporaries. His collage works, in Like Picasso's many Blue and Rose perceived by the artist/spectator, and is particular,undermined not only the con- period self-portraits in the guise of a therefore context-dependentand subject ventional fictions of the classical harlequin, the harlequin in the Assem- to change. tableau, but also those of the new, blage with Guitar Player (Fig. 18)- avant-garde tableau-objet. By inscrib- which the artist preserved as an inde- ing both paradigms in a paradoxical work after dismantling his he relation of the as a of pendent table, sign of and difference, Picasso be interpreted as a the modernist for the lit- play identity assemblage-may aspiration demonstrated that the material litera- Ironically, however, the eral to the as a of self-portrait.35 object, tableau, sign lness of the itself was consti- is unmasked; two traditional in fun- "object" harlequin partially illusion, is, my view, tuted within a of bearing the schematic marking of damental. Andre Lhote tells us that "on system oppositions,just planes as the by-then discredited "transparen- the ear (a double curve) and the tangen- this new theme, Picasso and Braque of the had been consti- tial lines of the and nose fan embroidered the most delicate and the cy" picture plane eyebrows tuted as a fiction in opposition to the out to the left. But the "self" thereby most clever arabesques. They strove to world outside the frame. As if motivated revealed is shown to consist in assimilate the table to the tableau."3' only a Nietzschean of radical another schematic (a And to the by project representation according Kahnweiler, paint- doubt, Picasso seemed to test each new vertical line for a nose and two dots for ers themselves discussed the notion of claim for artistic or "real- as if the "self" for Picasso were a the a deal: "The authenticity, eyes), tableau-objet great ism," in order to reveal its conventional of masks, of surfaces in the of layering paper-like Cubists, following footsteps basis. without interiority or depth. Cezanne, always insisted on the inde- Picasso's for The work of art considered as a table existence of the work of art. strategy accomplishing pendent this was to displace the prevailing oppo- a jouer contributes also to our under- 'le an They talked about tableau-objet,' sition of the tableau and the tableau- standing of the role of Picasso's subject which could be object put anywhere.... objet, by turning to a new paradigm, matter during this period. Picasso The Cubist used also to talk of 'le poets which, not surprisingly, may also be repeatedly turned to still lifes, and espe- poeme-objet.' "32 derived from the tabula. This was the cially the cafe table, not because the of Given the well-known enjoyment notion of the work of art as a table a subject could be regarded as a "mere other puns and paradoxes (both linguis- jouer, a gaming table. Thus conceived, pretext" for formal innovation but in tic and pictorial) in the circle of painters the work of art became a "conventional- part because of its traditional associa- sometimes called "la bande a and poets ized" field of representation,open to the tion with realism, including trompe- discussions have led Picasso," these may play of paradox, conflicting interpreta- l'oeil painting. Thus Picasso was able to to an interest in the semantic possibili- tions, and the collision of multiple subvert the notion of realism from in word "tableau." ties contained the ("high" and "low," pictorial and verbal) within the very genre most frequently Latin This word, which derives from the cultural codes. The fragmentation and concerned with visual description and or "tabula,"33for wooden board plank, dispersal of forms in Picasso's Cubism the actuality of the referent. Additional-

320 Art Journal 2 John Golding, Cubism: A History and an Anal- ysis, 1907-1914, New York, 1968, p. 81. 3 Ibid., p. 94. 4 Ibid., p. 105. 5 Ibid., pp. 117-18. 6 Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, The Rise of Cubism, trans. Henry Aronson, New York, 1949, p. 7. 7 Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, "Accomplissement classique du cubisme Juan Gris [1928]," in Confessions esthetiques, Paris, 1963, p. 51: "le retour a l'unit6 de l'oeuvre d'art, dans la volont6 de cre6r non des esquisses, mais des organismes autonomes et accomplis." 8 Kahnweiler (cited n. 6), p. 12. 9 Guillaume Apollinaire describes the function of "the object, real or in trompe-l'oeil" as a kind of "inner frame," in Meditations estheti- ques: Les Peintres Cubistes, Paris, 1980 [1913], p. 77. While retaining Apollinaire's concept of the "inner frame," this essay will explore the oppositional structure of the real and the represented in Picasso's collages. 10 Fernande Olivier, Picasso et ses amis, Paris, 1933, p. 171, recounts Picasso's love for "ordi- nary objects" in her memoirs of this period: "En matiere de decoration, Picasso avait un gofit qui le portait a acheter, souvent par ironie, les objets les plus ordinaires;il avait des manies de collectionneur pour toutes sortes de petites choses.... II aimait les vieux morceaux de tapisserie, Verdures, Aubussons, Beauvais dont il 6tait parfois difficile de reconnaitre le sujet a cause de leur mauvais 6tat. Des instruments de musique, des boltes, des vieux cadres d6dor6s. De frais chromos encadr6s de paille ornaient les murs de la salle a manger. Ils eussent ete a leur aise dans une loge de concierge. Lui-meme riait de cela." 11 Robert Rosenblum has suggested that Picasso may have seen such a mirror during his trip to Le Havre, which preceeded his making of this Fig. 18 Pablo Picasso, Head of a Man, 1913, oil, charcoal, ink, pencil on sized collage. Rosenblum reproduces a mirrorof this paper, 241/4x 181/4".New York, Richard S. Zeisler Collection. type in "Still Life with Chair Caning," Picasso, from the Musee Picasso, Paris, exh. cat., Min- neapolis, Walker Art Center, 1980, p. 43. ly, many of the objects familiar to Picas- and writing of this paper. The ideas presented here so's cafe tables-musical instruments, form a part of my dissertation, "In Defiance of 12 Rosenblum (cited n. 11), p. 42, noted that the cards, dice, wine, cigarettes, even the Painting: The Invention and Early Practice of frame in this collage can be read as both a fragmented word "JOU"-evoke popu- Collage, 1912-1919" (Yale University, May picture frame and a reference to the carved lar scenes of play and light-hearted 1988). edge of a table. enjoyment.36As Picasso told his friend 1 This collage was executed some time before 13 William Rubin, "Primitivism" in Twentieth- from the Bateau-Lavoir days, the poet May 18, 1912, the date of Picasso's departure Century Art, vol. I, exh. cat., New York, The and painter Andre Warnod in 1945: for Sorgues with his new mistress, Eva Gouel Museum of Modern Art, 1984, p. 316, cites a 'The studio of a painter should be a (Marcelle Humbert). In a letter to Kahnweiler lengthy discussion he once had with Picasso laboratory. There, one does not make art dated June 5, 1912, Picasso provided his dealer about the tasseled furniture fringes he often in the manner of an ape, one invents. with a list of the works that he might remove used in his Cubist collages and constructions as Painting is a play of the spirit."37 from his apartment in Paris. He specifically evidence for Rubin's assertion that materials excluded the Still Life with Chair-Caning and had a "secret metaphoric value" for the artist. Notes a related work that also has a rope frame, Notre My analysis of Picasso's use of these fringes a A version of this paper was delivered in November avenir est dans l'air. For partial reproduction suggests that he was interested in them because et Michel 1985 at the Whitney Humanities Center, Yale of this letter, see: Donation Louise of their function as frames. A photographtaken exh. cat., his sister University. I should like to thank the Whitney Leiris, Collection Kahnweiler-Leiris, of Picasso at the age of seven with Humanities Center and the Georges Lurcy Foun- Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Musee Lola, in which he is shown sitting on a chair November 22- such dation for providing me with a grant for the year national d'art moderne, 1984, decorated with long fringe, suggests that 1985-86, enabling me to carry out the research January 28, 1985, pp. 166-68. objects may also have had personal associations

Winter 1988 321 for him; see: Josep Palau i Fabre, Picasso, The on the very same bipolar system that structures altering its underlying structure) before selling Early Years 1881-1907, Barcelona, 1985, p. Wolfflin's Principles of Art History: "The it to Roger Fry in 1913. 34. Picasso evidently also enjoyed the use of predicates fixed by the Cubist collage bits 36 It should be noted that Picasso did not himself such fringes, especially when they imitated operate as the integers of such a system, the play the musical instruments or cards he so architectural motifs, precisely because they very same formal system as Wolfflin's set of frequently represented. He tended to regard were considered by some to be in bad taste. See master terms: planari- closed/open, line/color, these objects as props, and has stated that his the review of an exhibition of decorative art in In the great, complex Cubist ty/recession.... interest in the guitar was primarily symbolic. Stuttgart chosen by the curator precisely to collages, each element yields a matched pair of See: Werner Spies, Sculpture by Picasso, New demonstrate faults in taste: C. S., "Aberrations formal signifieds: line and color, closure and York, 1971, p. 71. du Gout en Matiere d' Art Decoratif," Art et openness, planarity and recession." Picasso's Industrie (October 1909), n.p. According to matched pairs of formal signifieds, however, do 37 "En peinture tout n'est que signe," Arts (June the author, the problem with such "trucs not draw directly on Wolfflin's historical sche- 29, 1945): "Un atelier de peintre doit etre un employ6s par les faussaires" is that "ils sortent ma, and to the extent that there are parallels, laboratoire. On n'y fait pas un metier de singe, un peu du cadre du musee." this reflects a parallel historical perception. on invente. La peinture est un jeu d'esprit." Many of Picasso's formal oppositions derive 14 Olivier (cited n. 10). from contemporary aesthetic antinomies, such Christine Poggi is Assistant Professor 15 One can even trace this interest in conflating as the distinction between popular and fine art, of the History of Art at the University vertical and horizontal orientations to Picasso's or that between curved and straight lines. of Pennsylvania. Her most recent Demoiselles d' Avignon, in which the demoi- is and 26 Stein (cited n. 19), p. 18. publication "Mallarme, Picasso, selle second from the left appears as a reclining the Newspaper as Commodity," The figure catapulted into an upright position. Leo 27 I am grateful to Celeste Brusati for the obser- Yale Journal of Criticism (Fall 1987). Steinberg, "The Philosophical Brothel," Art vation that the reversal of the guitar recalls the News, Part 1, 71:5 (September 1972), pp. reversal of objects in prints and certain other 20-29; Part 2, 71:6 (October 1972), pp. 38-47, kinds of reproductivemediums. discusses this phenomenon and its relation to 28 I should like to thank Anne Coffin Hanson for similarly "reclining" nudes in Matisse. Stein- calling my attention to the proplike character berg also discusses the relation of vertical and of the costume worn by Manet's guitarist. horizontal planes in the combine paintings of Robert Rauschenberg in, "Other Criteria," 29 I do not wish to claim that Picasso's assemblage Other Criteria, New York, 1975, [1972]. necessarily makes a conscious reference to Manet's The Spanish Singer, although there is 16 See, for example, the catalogue entry for The ample evidence that Picasso was fascinated by Portuguese in, George Braque: "AnExhibition the work of Manet both prior to and after his of Paintings, exh. cat., London, The Tate Gal- execution of Assemblage with Guitar Player. I lery, September 28-November 11, 1956, p. 32. merely wish to suggest this reference as a 17 Nicole Worms de Romilly and Jean Laude, tantalizing possibility. Picasso's reversal of the Braque, le Cubisme fin 1907-1914, Paris, guitar, however, is meaningful even without 1982, p. 48. specifically invoking Manet's The Spanish Singer. 18 Violin hangs on the lower portion of the right wall, the second work in from the corner. 30 I am grateful to John McCoubrey for calling the of this table top to my attention. 19 Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Boston, 1959, [1938] angle p. 12. 31 Andre Lh6te, "Naissance du Cubisme," in Histoire de l'art contemporain, ed. Ren6 20 Thomas Crow has made a related critique of Huyghe, New York, 1968, p. 216: "Sur ce the "modernist" interpretation of collage in, theme nouveau, Picasso et Braque broderentles "Modernism and Mass Culture in the Visual plus delicates et les plus sages arabesques. Ils Arts," Modernism and Modernity: The Van- imaginerent d'assimiler la table au tableau." couver Conference Papers, ed. Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Halifax, N.S., 1983. For a view of 32 Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Juan Gris, His Life Picasso's collages as initiating an important and Work, trans. Douglas Cooper, New York, break with modernism, see: Rosalind Krauss, n.d. [1977], p. 68. "Re-Presenting Picasso," Art in America 68:10 33 For the etymology of tabula, see: Eugene (December 1980), pp. 90-96, and idem, "In the Benoist and Henri Goelzer, Nouveau Diction- Name of Picasso," October 16 (Spring 1981), naire Latin-Francais, 10th ed., Paris, 1922, p. pp. 5-22. 1550; and P. G. W. Glare, ed., Oxford Latin 21 Quoted in translation in Edward Fry, Cubism, Dictionary, Oxford, 1982, pp. 1898-99. New York, 1966, p. 108. 34 For a discussion of the meaning of tableau in 22"Pablo Picasso," Paris-Journal (September the eighteenth century, particularly in the criti- 21, 1911), quoted in translation in ibid., p. 68. cism of Diderot, see: Michael Fried, Absorp- tion and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder 23 Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, with Francis in the Age of Diderot, Berkeley, 1980, pp. Cr6mieux, My Galleries and Painters, trans. 89-96. Helen Weaver, New York, 1971, p. 43. 35 I am convinced that this work, now titled Head 24 "Picasso Speaks," The Arts, 3:5 (May 1923), of a Man, which is executed on sized paper, is p. 319. the surviving portionof the backdropof Assem- 25 Krauss, "Re-presenting Picasso" (cited n. 20), blage with Guitar Player. Picasso evidently p. 96, compares Picasso's formal oppositions to cropped the backdrop to its present size and those established in the "modernist" writing of elaborated upon his depiction of the harlequin's the history of art and finds that they are based head (adding some ornamental detail but not

322 Art Journal