Les Ciseaux 1926

Juan Gris made Les Ciseaux, or The Scissors, with oil paint. Gris isn't too concerned with hiding the process of painting, he builds up the image out of these flat planes that sit on top of each other. There’s an area in the bottom left where you can see the dark grey, almost black paint that he used to create a shadow. It’s a simple shape, but it gives depth to the image, as if the objects are sitting on a real surface. All the shapes here are simplified so much that they are almost abstract, so by doing this, he is really pushing the painting into a space between representation and abstraction. Like other cubists, you might be thinking of Picasso or Braque, Gris is interested in showing multiple viewpoints at once. What’s interesting is that the longer you look at it, the more the objects begin to emerge from the canvas. It’s a fun and active way of seeing, that opens up to new interpretations each time you look at it.