Violin and Playing Cards on a Table 1913

Juan Gris made this painting of a violin and playing cards on a table with oil paint. The process feels important here, like the act of seeing is as much about building as it is about looking. I keep returning to the surface texture; thin paint, applied in simple, flat shapes, not fussy. The wood of the table isn’t about recreating wood, it’s about a set of parallel lines, a direction, a zone. It reminds me of Agnes Martin in a weird way, with the same sense of humility, of making a painting that’s also okay with being a thing, a surface. I guess that’s what I like most about it. It’s not trying to be anything other than a painting, but within that constraint, it lets itself be strange, ambiguous, and quietly confident. The longer I look, the more I realize that nothing is really fixed, everything is open to question.