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Lot Essay
Painted in December 1916, La nappe blanche is suffused with the harmonious lyricism of the Cubism that marked the beginning of Juan Gris' artistic maturity. During the previous years, he had experimented widely with his fellow Cubists of both the first and second ranks, but now, during the middle of the First World War, he worked in near isolation, paring back the more decorative affectations that he felt had marked the entire movement's works, and instead distilling his Cubism into something more pure. La nappe blanche is filled with a sense of light, of balance, but at the same time has a resonant solidity, a clarity of vision through which the artist has perfectly managed to capture the forms of table, bottle and tablecloth.
Gris had been in Paris for over a decade by the time he painted La nappe blanche, and had arrived there in time to befriend Picasso and Braque and to witness at first hand the birth of Cubism. It was only in 1910 that he himself began truly to participate in the movement, and even then his contributions were marked by a deliberate simplicity that eschewed the mottled multiple viewpoints of his fellow pioneers. This was perhaps a reaction to his own training in engineering, creating images that conveyed precise and detailed information. And it was perhaps also this training that led to Gris' friendship with some of the other Cubists, the more mathematical practitioners of that artform such as Gleizes, Metzinger and Marcel Duchamp. With his roots in science and scientific illustration, Gris brought a grounded sense of logic to his pictures, and this is nowhere more clear than in La nappe blanche. Here, the relationship between the light and the planes of the various objects recalls less Picasso, Léger or Gleizes than Cézanne's still life images, not least his works on paper with their sense of transparency and luminosity. This picture thereby reflects Gris' removal, enforced by chance in some cases and by choice in others, from his contemporaries. For while many of the French artists of the day had been forced to join up and fight or perform other tasks during the First World War, Gris was one of a handful of foreigners not obliged to serve. Indeed, he was unable to return to his native Spain because he had already been declared a draft dodger there.
Although Picasso and various others were still in Paris during this period, Gris deliberately kept himself at a remove from them and also from their influence and their criticism. In this seclusion, both in Paris and on occasional visits to the countryside, Gris managed to distil his Cubism to something that, through the application of his own rigorous logic, translated an emotional as well as an analytical content to the viewer. The year before he had painted La nappe blanche, he wrote to his friend and dealer-- and later biographer-- Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler that, 'I think I have really made progress recently and that my pictures begin to have a unity which they have lacked till now. They are no longer those inventories of objects which used to depress me so much' (Gris, quoted in C. Green, Juan Gris, London and New Haven, 1992, p. 51). In La nappe blanche, this is clear in the complex interrelationship of the objects depicted. They have an intricate yet natural interplay with each other, lending a true sense of their reality as tangible objects. At the same time, the clear planes of colour through which Gris has captured this scene have a marked simplicity he has removed the unnecessary, reducing his visual reality to something that sings with a simple and engaging honesty.
Gris' still life paintings from this period provided him with a sweeping arena in which, devoid of pressure or constraints of time, he could explore the potential of each scene, each composition. They also reflect not only his more reclusive lifestyle of the period, but also the necessary, enforced domestic existence that marked these wartime years. Just as Severini pointed out that Picasso created still life pictures with certain objects because they were almost all he could afford, so too with Gris. At the same time, they show a certain comfort La nappe blanche breathes with a contentedness that speaks of a home life that is apparently detached from the contemporary rigours of the world at war. Indeed, there is an almost spiritual core to La nappe blanche and to Gris' other still life paintings from this vintage period. La nappe blanche is Cubistic and therefore avant garde, yet has the same timeless atmosphere of contemplation of a still life by Chardin, Velazquez or Cotan or, later, Morandi. In this way, he used his experience of technical draughtsmanship in short, a scientific framework in order to develop a harmonious means of presenting the world in miniature. He used his mathematical background to create an emotional still life.
Although at the time he was shunning most society, and especially that of artists, one of the few people with whom he had relatively frequent contact was Léonce Rosenberg, himself serving as a soldier. Because Kahnweiler-- Gris' dealer-- had been forced, as a German national, to flee France, Gris had found himself stranded. He had refused to participate in arrangements whereby he could be paid for his paintings because, despite his dire need of money, he did not want to renege upon his contract with Kahnweiler, a contract from which he was only released at the time of La nappe blanche's execution. But even before then, Rosenberg had made a concerted effort to help Gris, as well as Braque and Picasso. This is reflected in the fact that La nappe blanche itself passed through his hands shortly after its execution, before passing into the collection of Vicomte Alain de Léché, himself a considerable patron who also owned works by Modigliani and later even by Dalí. It then came into the possession of the publisher Bernard Poissonnier, whose bequest to Paris' Bibliothèque Nationale included several manuscripts by Gris' friend, Guillaume Apollinaire. Exhibited in the celebrated Les Créateurs de Cubisme at the Galerie des Beaux-Arts in 1935, the present picture has remained in the same private collection since 1977 and has never previously appeared on the auction market.
Gris had been in Paris for over a decade by the time he painted La nappe blanche, and had arrived there in time to befriend Picasso and Braque and to witness at first hand the birth of Cubism. It was only in 1910 that he himself began truly to participate in the movement, and even then his contributions were marked by a deliberate simplicity that eschewed the mottled multiple viewpoints of his fellow pioneers. This was perhaps a reaction to his own training in engineering, creating images that conveyed precise and detailed information. And it was perhaps also this training that led to Gris' friendship with some of the other Cubists, the more mathematical practitioners of that artform such as Gleizes, Metzinger and Marcel Duchamp. With his roots in science and scientific illustration, Gris brought a grounded sense of logic to his pictures, and this is nowhere more clear than in La nappe blanche. Here, the relationship between the light and the planes of the various objects recalls less Picasso, Léger or Gleizes than Cézanne's still life images, not least his works on paper with their sense of transparency and luminosity. This picture thereby reflects Gris' removal, enforced by chance in some cases and by choice in others, from his contemporaries. For while many of the French artists of the day had been forced to join up and fight or perform other tasks during the First World War, Gris was one of a handful of foreigners not obliged to serve. Indeed, he was unable to return to his native Spain because he had already been declared a draft dodger there.
Although Picasso and various others were still in Paris during this period, Gris deliberately kept himself at a remove from them and also from their influence and their criticism. In this seclusion, both in Paris and on occasional visits to the countryside, Gris managed to distil his Cubism to something that, through the application of his own rigorous logic, translated an emotional as well as an analytical content to the viewer. The year before he had painted La nappe blanche, he wrote to his friend and dealer-- and later biographer-- Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler that, 'I think I have really made progress recently and that my pictures begin to have a unity which they have lacked till now. They are no longer those inventories of objects which used to depress me so much' (Gris, quoted in C. Green, Juan Gris, London and New Haven, 1992, p. 51). In La nappe blanche, this is clear in the complex interrelationship of the objects depicted. They have an intricate yet natural interplay with each other, lending a true sense of their reality as tangible objects. At the same time, the clear planes of colour through which Gris has captured this scene have a marked simplicity he has removed the unnecessary, reducing his visual reality to something that sings with a simple and engaging honesty.
Gris' still life paintings from this period provided him with a sweeping arena in which, devoid of pressure or constraints of time, he could explore the potential of each scene, each composition. They also reflect not only his more reclusive lifestyle of the period, but also the necessary, enforced domestic existence that marked these wartime years. Just as Severini pointed out that Picasso created still life pictures with certain objects because they were almost all he could afford, so too with Gris. At the same time, they show a certain comfort La nappe blanche breathes with a contentedness that speaks of a home life that is apparently detached from the contemporary rigours of the world at war. Indeed, there is an almost spiritual core to La nappe blanche and to Gris' other still life paintings from this vintage period. La nappe blanche is Cubistic and therefore avant garde, yet has the same timeless atmosphere of contemplation of a still life by Chardin, Velazquez or Cotan or, later, Morandi. In this way, he used his experience of technical draughtsmanship in short, a scientific framework in order to develop a harmonious means of presenting the world in miniature. He used his mathematical background to create an emotional still life.
Although at the time he was shunning most society, and especially that of artists, one of the few people with whom he had relatively frequent contact was Léonce Rosenberg, himself serving as a soldier. Because Kahnweiler-- Gris' dealer-- had been forced, as a German national, to flee France, Gris had found himself stranded. He had refused to participate in arrangements whereby he could be paid for his paintings because, despite his dire need of money, he did not want to renege upon his contract with Kahnweiler, a contract from which he was only released at the time of La nappe blanche's execution. But even before then, Rosenberg had made a concerted effort to help Gris, as well as Braque and Picasso. This is reflected in the fact that La nappe blanche itself passed through his hands shortly after its execution, before passing into the collection of Vicomte Alain de Léché, himself a considerable patron who also owned works by Modigliani and later even by Dalí. It then came into the possession of the publisher Bernard Poissonnier, whose bequest to Paris' Bibliothèque Nationale included several manuscripts by Gris' friend, Guillaume Apollinaire. Exhibited in the celebrated Les Créateurs de Cubisme at the Galerie des Beaux-Arts in 1935, the present picture has remained in the same private collection since 1977 and has never previously appeared on the auction market.