Clarinet 1911

This is Picasso’s ‘Clarinet’, though when and with what materials, I’m not entirely sure! It’s like Picasso took a clarinet, smashed it into a million pieces, and then reassembled it, not quite right, but somehow, so right. The colors, mostly browns and grays, are muted, but they give the painting a kind of depth, a history. You can almost feel the dust and grit. The paint looks thin, like it’s been scrubbed into the canvas. And then you see these sharp, angular shapes, all bumping up against each other. Look at the zigzag near the bottom, like a little jolt of energy in the middle of all that stillness. It reminds me a little of Braque, with the way he played with form and space, turning objects into puzzles, but Picasso? He always had that extra bit of wildness in him. He’s like the punk rocker of Cubism.