Fooling the Eye

A new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, Cubism and the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition, prompted a bit of fooling around. Above, you’ll find a bit of a Braque grafted onto a 17th century still life by Adriaen van der Spelt and Frans van Mieris. Below, you’ll find, first, a bit of a Gris onto which is grafted a fine half-peeled lemon by J. S. Bernard, and below that a bit of The Attributes of the Painter by Cornelius Norbertus Gijsbrechts, into the violin of which are tucked two bits of Picasso.

July Miscellany, with music by Jaeger, Mattingly & Trapani & performances by Dhegrae & Contemporaneous

That’s Robert Louis Stevenson contemplating the proceedings, courtesy John Singer Sargent. The proceedings include, among other things, El café by Joaquín Torres-García and the Cabinet of Geology and Mineralogy from the announcement of a project by Mark Dion at Vassar College.

A Cubist Glimpse

Juan Gris, The Fruit Bowl

I love Reverdy for saying yes, though I don’t believe it.
—Frank O’Hara

The poet Pierre Reverdy is reputed to have said, “From 1910 to 1914 I learned the cubist lesson.” I’ve yet to find out what lesson he felt he learned, but he certainly spent a lot of time among Cubist painters. Each of the poems in his collection Au Soleil du plafond refers to a still life by Juan Gris, one of which, Compotier (The Fruit Bowl), is on display in the current exhibition of Cubist works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.