Pipe and Musical Score (Pipe and Sheet Music) 1914

This is one of those small paintings, "Pipe and Musical Score", by Picasso over at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and it's an exercise in brown. It's like he mixed up a bunch of browns and tans and said, "let's see what happens." You can see the history of each brushstroke, where each color starts and stops. There's a little white, but mostly it’s all about these different earthy tones, bumping up against each other, creating this abstract still life. The surface is smooth, the paint thinly applied, almost like stains. You can sense the quickness of his hand, the way he was just letting the paint do its thing. Look at the top left, there are these little strokes of brown against the white shapes. They are almost like drips, and you can see how that area really defines the space. It reminds me of some of Braque’s work, but with a touch more grit. Picasso is letting you see the messy, beautiful process of making art.