84TH ACSA ANNUAL MEETING DESIGNIDESIGN STUDIO 1996 181

Collage Reading: Braque I Picasso

JEFFREY HILDNER
University of Virginia

...behind every twentieth-century grid there lies...a symbolist window parading in the guise of a treatise on optics.
- Rosalind Krauss (1 7)

Fig. 1

My theme is the difference between the respective first acts

of Synthetic Cubism by Picasso and Braque, Still Life with
Chair-caning and Fruit Dish and Glass (figs. 1 and 2). The
purpose is two-fold: first, to suggest that Braque's project,
overshadowed by Picasso's, contains evidence of an archi-
tectural consciousness of a different nature and is, in certain
fhdamental ways, more instructive; and second, to describe
how the competing, dialectical issues contribute to an under-
standingheading of one of my own projects.
It is well known that the invention of collage in 1912 was Fig. 2
the anomalous creative act that marked the break from
Analytical Cubism to Synthetic Cubism - an act more certainly well known that their own rigorous Purist paintings
disruptive to the philosophical structure of the Western were a direct reaction to what they regarded as the degenerate
pictorial tradition than even Picasso's Les Demoiselles excesses initiated by this phase of Braque and Picasso's work
d 'Avignon five years earlier. And, if it is less well known that (Golding 118). Indeed, Le Corbusier's architecture may be
Le Corbusier and Ozenfant were the first, in La Peinture seen to be evidence of an ironic double-phenomenon: on the
Moderne, 1925, to identify the phenomenon of collage as one hand, his architecture, which unfolds from his Purist
evidence of a violent break in the evolution of Cubism, it is paintings, incorporates a sensibility of classical detachment
84THACSA ANNUAL MEETING DESIGNIDESICN STUDIO 1996
-

and scrupulous rule of the picture plane that he learned from generally considered a lesser work, at least in terms of the
Post-Impressionist French painters such as Cezanne and hierarchy ofmedia. Picasso's collage is classified as a painting
Seurat, as well as from the Italian Renaissance mathemati- whereas Braque's is considered to be a drawing. And, to add
cian and painter that inspired their researches, Piero della insult to injury, Braque produced his papier collb (pasted
Francesca - this rigorous geometric tradition enabled Le paper), which is considered a particular kind of collage versus
Corbusier to reject the loss of restraint and discipline, the collage in general (Golding 108),some months after Picasso's
excessive self-assertion, that he saw in collage; on the other project. On the other hand, it is generally understood that if
hand, he employed the abstracted device of collage as the collage is fundamentally an act whereby "extraneous objects
basis for the plastic expression of the exact and equilibrated or materials are applied to the picture surface," as Golding
relations that govern his paintings and of the "correct and writes (104), then Braque committed the frst act ofcollage -
magnificent play of masses brought together in light" that the first Synthetic Cubist act - through the anomalous
determine his architecture (29). Le Corbusier looked back to introduction of type at the high-point of Analytical Cubism in
the purity of Cezanne's formal vision on this matter in order his Le Portugais, 19 1 1. Significant though this point may be,
to resurrect a pre-Cubist regard for invariants, and for the it is lost in the shuffle ofarchitectural consciousness. Picasso's
discipline and restraint that attends them. In Towards a New project enjoys privileged status, which its employment by
Architecture, he employed, without attribution, Cezanne's Rowe and Koetter as the frontispiece of their book Collage
very words. Cezanne wrote in the famous letter to Emile City perhaps best reveals.
Bernard, 1904: "treat nature by means of the cylinder, the I believe that the significance of Braque's first collage
sphere, the cone" (Harrison 37). Le Corbusier later declared deserves more attention. I would like to make a case for the
that the "essentials of architecture lie in spheres, cones, and difference between his project and Picasso's with respect to
cylinders" (40), as well as in "cubes" and "pyramids" (29). two fundamental precepts of the Western pictorial tradition;
The Assembly Building at Chandigarh and La Tourette, if namely, the dialectical phenomena of figurelfield (or, as
not also Villa Savoye, are perhaps the best examples of Le RoweIKoetter describe it, "object/texture") and symboV
Corbusier's dialectical debt to Synthetic Cubism as seen structure. Something of this difference and of the relative
through his Cezannesque, French lens. importance of Picasso's and Braque's discoveries is recog-
Moreover, aspects of Le Corbusier's work may also be nized by Golding:
seen as a paradigmatic architectural manifestation of a
It is characteristic that Picasso should have invented
specific phenomenon within the evolution of'collage, one in
collage, which was subsequently to be used by the
which a more emphatic architectural act of three-dimension-
Dadaists as a weapon to destroy all art, and by the
ality asserted its dominance over concern with the flatness of
Surrealists to achieve the most disconcerting and
the Cubist picture-surface as the origin and sum of the artistic
disturbing ofpsychological effects, while Braque should
act. And, as is well known, for this we look to the break from
have been the author of the first papier colle, an
the two-dimensional collages of Picasso to his three-dimen-
equally original pictorial technique at the service of
sional constructions, by which we are able to understand that
more purely formalistic ends" (108). I
his Guitar, 1912, initiated an even more literal connection
between paintinglsculpture and architecture. As Clement
PICASSO: FIGURE AND SYMBOL
Greenberg writes:
Picasso's collage is an oval. In his painting he glued a piece
Sometime in 1912, Picasso cut out and folded a piece
of oil cloth, overprinted to imitate chair-caning. By one
of paper in the shape of a guitar; to this he glued and
reading, the oval represents a table, perhaps the very table
fitted other pieces of paper and four taut strings, thus
upon which the objects of the still life are organized and with
creating a sequence of flat surfaces in real and sculp-
which the chair is presumably associated. By a second,
tural space to which there clung only the vestige of a
coexistent reading, the oval, as a contemporary photographic
picture plane. The fixed elements of collage were
collage by Harry Callahan suggests, symbolizes the eye.
extruded, as it were, and cut off from the literal
Picasso's oval is thus a self-referential device that signifies,
pictorial surface to form a bas-relief. By this act he
perhaps, a dialogue between the subjective eye and the
founded a new tradition and genre of sculpture, the one
reconstituted objects of the tabletop that provide the field of
that came to be called 'construction' (79-80).
vision for that eye. In terms of formal structure, the collage
It is generally held that this transformation from the is organized biaxially. The dominance of the cyclopean eye
abstractions of painting to the facticity of construction pro- at the center of the painting and its attachment to the slightly
pelled Picasso ahead of Braque in his researches in an cranked vertical assemblage that ascends to the top of the
unmistakable way and initiated a revolution in the plastic arts oval frame compare directly to the guitar. The central hub
during the nineteen-teens and nineteen-twenties whose pre- performs the function of optical bull's-eye and rotational pin
mises obviously still underlie much advanced architecture about which the objects implicitly spin. The vertical assem-
today. bly as a whole recalls the device of the diptych, in which the
But what about Braque? His Fruit Dish and Glass is column, as in Renaissance Annunciation paintings, func-
84THACSA ANNUAL MEETING DESIGNIDESICN STUDIO 1996 183

tions simultaneously and ambivalently as mediator and generate equivocal readings of figure and field, and fore-
divider between left and right worlds. Through the optical ground and background. The wood-grained paper at the
device of bas-relief, Picasso privileges the sculptural prop- bottom edge of the picture applies to the table, which the
erties of the collage, which may be read as piling up to a point imagination understands to be in the foreground, if not
of highest altitude at this enigmatic central "column." On coincident with the picture plane itself. Thus, in combination
one level, the "column" functions not unlike the larger with the other two strips of wood-grained paper, which are
central area in Braque's collage. Thus it generates a subtle associated predominantly with the (more distant) elevation
Kepes/Rowe/Slutzky-like equivocal reading of solidvoid. of the interior wall, it functions as a formal device of spatial
Is it an object of the still life (bottle or flask), anthropomor- collapse. In fact, the phenomenal transparency thus achieved
phic assemblage (elbow, chin, nose, mouth, and eye), or is has the effect of causing us to perceive at times the upper two
it a negative, figural cut, a window to the space beyond? strips as advancing even more forward than the one below.2
Underlying this reading is the fluctuation between volume On another level, if the three wood-grained strips are read as
and plane. But I would argue that here, as in the collage as the positive figure, the resulting so-called negative, or
a whole, the primary reading is aggressively three-dimen- residual, space of the canvas that they frame, whether in
sional. If Picasso's guitar emphasizes objecthood, his two- elevation or plan, reads as no less calculated or figural. The
dimensional collage does so to no less a degree. Thus, it is not reciprocity is such (especially at the left piece, which is the
surprising that the intellectual association of the oval shape most articulated, and therefore the most contingent) that the
either symbolically with eye and/or factually with table is lighter area of the canvas might also be read as the positive
more important than its potential function as participatory figure. The three wood-grained pieces might be read, there-
boundary in the architectonic regulation of the picture plane. fore, as visually but not physically separated. In other words,
Ultimately, in various ways, these two inventions (collage they might be construed to constitute a co-planar surface, a
and construction) are consistent with many of Picasso's wood-grained back-plane (in elevation) or ground-plane (in
fractured, centroidal object-fixated works of his earlier plan) that is "behind" or "under" the lighter area of canvas
analytical period. that obscures its continuity.
There is a line that connects, at least categorically, With respect to the second principle- the insideloutside
Picasso's oval and guitar to the paintings and sculptures of dialectic - the composition may be understood, on one
other artists, such as Boccioni's Development of a Bottle in level, as positing a literal interior, beyond which, through the
Space, 1912 (Picasso's collage might be read as its plan and window above the still-life, we behold the existence of an
elevation). There is also a line that connects Picasso's work exterior realm. As suggested above, the wood-grained pieces
to the expressive, collage-based works of architects such as simultaneously frame a phenomenal window (the spatial
Tatlin, Chernikov, and Gehry. (This line extends, on another opening, or void, on the surface of the painting) and also re-
level, to Mendelsohn, too; specifically, to the Einstein tower, present the wood of the frame that defines a literal window
1919.) The works that descend from Picasso's collage privi- (an architectural window implied within the interior room
lege objecthood and symbolic content. Issues of texture that is depicted). The exterior realm is perceived to exist in
(field, or negative space) and architectonic, plastic structure depth-that is, along the oblique z-axis that illusionistically
are generally secondary. recedes from the picture plane. Braque thereby suggests the
presence of a window that mediates between the interior
realm of contemplation and the world of nature beyond. On
BRAQUE: FIELD AND STRUCTURE
a second level, the composition suggests an opposition
Braque's project offers a different line ofthought. I read it as between an interior that is defined by the picture frame -
privileging the painterly versus the sculptural connection to that is, by the abscissas and ordinates of the picture plane that
architecture. Braque's chief concern is the problem of the regulate its scanning laterally and top-to-bottom - and an
picture plane. If Picasso's collage is "object-minded," exterior that lies outside the two-dimensional boundaries of
Braque's collage is "relation-minded"(Kepes 9). The differ- the plane. The wood-grained pieces at the left edge and
ence is consistent with the artists' stated definitions of bottom edge, for example, imply planar extension beyond
Cubism. Picasso's principal interest is form. Braque's prin- the edges of the frame. While Picasso's oval lens presumably
cipal interest is space (Golding 78). presents a cropped, circumstantial condition of a larger
Braque's composition illustrates two interrelated prin- visual field - thus establishing an inside/outside tension
ciples: (1) it achieves a hlgh degree of phenomenal transpar- with respect to the circumscription of the cone of vision -
ency, which is based on the organizationaVoptica1 device of the dominant force of his collage is centripetal. The gravi-
spatial fluctuation and on the plastic unity, or interconnection, tational pull is, as I described above, towards the center, a
of figure, background, and picture plane (Kepes 32/69/77);(2) phenomenon that is underscored by the dissipation of the
it establishes an inside/outside dialectic, on two levels, and compositional objects at the periphery. For the most part,
thereby sets up a problem of complex contingencies. Picasso's fonns are held back from the frame. The combina-
With respect to the first principle, Braque's organization tion of dissipated edge, univalent boundary, and central
and articulation of the three pieces of wood-grained paper optical axis essentially freezes the eye and mind and impedes
184 84'H ACSA ANNUAL MEETING DESlGNiDESlGN STUDIO 1996

their consideration of the formal conditions outside the of Richard Diebenkorn, provide instruction on various inter-
picture frame. The dominant organizational force of the related problems of visual literacy, such as: co-dependency of
Braque, on the other hand, is centrifugal. Whereas Picasso's figure and field within the plastic structure of volume and
oval boundary is a closed, autonomous condition, which plane; multiple frarningsand the grid; edge contingencies and
implies that alteration of the visual field must necessarily be decenterings; and window as iconic formal device and sym-
elliptical, Braque's rectilinear frame is a contingent condi- bol. I refer to these paintings in my own teaching and work for
tion, and the conditions for its expansion or contraction are inspiration on matters that relate to the designing and drawing
less egalitarian. The visual field might be coherently altered of plan, elevation, and section.
at any one of the four edges independently of the other three. Le Corbusier writes that "in a complete and successful
By employing a conventional rectangular frame, Braque work there are hidden masses of implications, a veritable
establishes an insideloutside dialectic in terms that relate to world which reveals itself to those whom it may concern"
the cropped, asymmetrical compositions of 19th-century (Schumacher 42). This is true of both Braque's and Picasso's
artists such as Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. His collage projects4 But it is Braque's work, I believe, that relates more
foreshadows the peripheric, edge-conscious, centrifugal grid- tothe abstract, architecturalintelligence behind Le Corbusier's
paintings of Mondrian (Krauss 18-19) and the equivocally iconic photographic tableau of the terrace at his mother's
balanced figurelfield paintings of Fritz Glarner. house in Vevey, for example. It also perhaps more nearly
In a significant act, one that posits the fundamental illustrates Meyer Schapiro's equation of modernism with a
tension between the two readings of insideloutside and also "conception of the world as law-bound in the relation of
underscores the oblique, centrifugal forces of the composi- simple elementary components, yet open, unbounded, and
tion, which operate as counterpoint to the prevailing or- contingent as a whole" (32). Moreover, it may well be the
thogonal grain, the word "BAR" in the upper right corner and ultimate irony that Braque's collage, when read in plan, more
the word "ALE" in the lower left comer combine to establish nearly illustrates the exemplary condition in Collage City of
the double assertion of surface and depth. The word "BAR," the figural void, which Rowe equates with the Uffizi, and that
on its own for example, operates as a device of spatial Picasso's more nearly illustrates the opposing, undesirable
collapse. It obstructs the reading of illusionistic recession condition ofthe autonomous object, which Rowe equates with
that draws the eye along the oblique axis of the picture plane the Marseille Block. It is the difference between architecture
and "out" to the literal landscape of the upper right ~ o r n e r . ~ as space-definer and architecture as space-occupier.
Rosalind Krauss's writes that "behind every twentieth-
century grid there lies...a symbolist window parading in the
guise of a treatise on optics" (17). Braque's project is,
In the end, the fundamental difference between the two
ultimately, about window, an idea that is central to the
works may rest on Ferdinand de Saussure's differentiation
interdependent consciousness of painting and architecture on
between the two basic rhetorical figures, metaphor and
innumerable levels. His collage-window is an architectural
metonymy. Terence Hawkes describes the "universal 'com-
act. It is an optical treatise that achieves an equivocal balance
petition"' (79) between these two fundamental modes of
between abstraction and representation, between the reality of
meaning, as follows:
surface and the phenomenon of depth, and between structure
and symbol. Moreover, it provides instruction on a variety of Metaphor...is generally 'associative' in character and
specific, formal archltectusal devices, including orthogonal exploits language's 'vertical' relations, where me-
gndding of the plane, oblique counter-tension, plan/elevation tonymy is generally 'syntagmatic' in character, and
reciprocity, decentering of the optical axis, continuation, exploits languages 'horizontal' relations ....The
slippage and displacement of line and plane, dynamic struc- combinative (or syntagrnatic) process manifests itself
ture (e.g., the four against three rhythm of the solidvoid in contiguity (one word being placed next to another)
horizontal intervals that comprise the picture's primary ver- and its mode is metonymic. The selective (or associa-
tical stratification), and several types ofphenomenal transpar- tive) process manifests itself in similarity (one word or
ency, including: (1) the continuity of line and plane in the xy- concept being 'like' another) and its mode is meta-
plane, whlch is based on the devices of interruption, align- phoric (77-78).
ment, and figural interlock; (2) equivocal advance and reces- Hawkes asserts that "both are figures of 'equivalence"' (77)
sion of the plane along the z-axis, which is based on the and gives the following example:
ambiguity of foreground and background. Many of these
devices are evident in the collage-based architecture of Thus, in the metaphor 'the car beetled along', the
Rietveld, Le Corbusier, and Terragni, for example. Matisse's movement of a beetle is proposed as equivalent to that
collage-likepainting, Piano Lesson,19 1 6, raises these Braquean of the car, and in the metonymic phrase 'The White
House considers a new policy', a specific building is
themes to a consummate level, wherein figure and field, and
symbol and structure, approximate an ideal equilibrium. proposed as 'equivalent' to the president of the United
Other works, ranging from the phenomenal transparency States (77).
studies of Leger and Rawlston Crawford to the field paintings Equivalence in the metaphoric mode is more distant. In the
84TH ACSA ANNUAL MEETING DESIGNIDESIGN STUDIO 1996 185

metonymic mode it is more contiguous. I would argue that tory. At the heart of this inquiry is the connection between
Picasso's collage is primarily metaphoric and that Braque's architecture and painting, literature, and astronomy.
is primarily metonymic. Picasso's hinges on vertical, asso- The primary architectural event ofDante/Telescope House
ciative relationships: the oval frame is like an eye, or it is like Z'"" is the garden facade, which includes what I call the Dante
a rope (which it physically is) that ties the disparate jumble Monolith and Diptych Column. The Monolith is structural
of still life objects together. Braque's depends on the less (in the engineering sense, that is). The fiee-standing Diptych
distant, horizontal, contiguous equivalence between picture Column is not. The primary h c t i o n of both is to support an
frame and window frame, and between foreground and idea. Seen through the lens of the Picasso collage, the
background. The difference is underscored by Hawkes ob- dominant reading is an architecture of figure and symbol, an
servation that "it is possible to distinguish between Cubism architecture that is simultaneously sculptural object (totemic
as metonymic and Surrealism as metaphoric in mode" (go), construction) as well as intellectual proposition. The steel
which recalls Golding's description of the basic difference beam-the "Telescope"-in the Monolith is sighted on the
between Picasso's and Braque's intentions and impact. North Star, a device of orientation as well as a device of
memory (it recalls architecture's original connection to
DANTElTELESCOPE HOUSE astronomy; for example, the first architects were astronomer
priests). The word "DANTE," which is written across the
I now turn briefly to a current project in order to suggest how
Monolith, employs a principal device of Synthetic Cubism,
it may be read in terms of the BraquelPicasso dialectic.
thus signifying the connection between architecture and
Dante/Telescope Housez'"" (fig. 3) attempts to find some
painting (and between Cubism and literary formalism). It
equivocal balance between readings of three-dimensional
also recalls architecture's ancient, original connection to
figure versus two-dimensional field, poetic form versus
writing, or literature (i.e., the idea of the building of a book,
intellectual content, symbolist window versus plastic struc-
and the book as building). According to this reading of my
ture, and metaphor versus metonym. In the spirit of the
project, which relates to lessons of Picasso's oval eyeltable
Russian formalists, my work centers on the double problem
collage, objecthood and symbolic content are dominant. The
of move/moving and strange-making - defamiliarization
construction is metaphorical. It is associative. It is a process
-which, in a nutshell, involves bringing architecture into
that "manifests itself in similarity" (Hawkes 78). The Mono-
a sphere of new perception through devices and techniques
lith is "like" a book. The steel beam is "like" a telescope.
applied to materials. I amconcerned both with architecture's
Seen through the Braque lens, the same project can be
identity as an abstract plastic art and with its ancient, original
understood to be primarily a metonymic, self-referential
iconographic and ontological functions as text and observa-
assertion about painting, boundaries, framing, two-dimen-
sional plastic structure, and windows. On one level, in
opposition to the facticity of the Monolith's literal incisions,
cuts, and windows, the painting of its surface attempts to
achieve a reading of phenomenal transparency, drawing on
themes of the plan. This act declares the primacy of surface.
It supports a reading of the Monolith's primary identity as
plane versus three-
dimensional object. On another level, the principal elements
of diptych Renaissance Annunciation paintings are in place:
insideloutside, lewright, and vertical/horizontal opposition
(the Telescope functions as the iconic diagonal and symbol
of heavenly light). Braque's instruction causes us to see that
the Monolith and Diptych Column not only have mental and
visual independence (not only can they be read as individual
elements of sculpture or construction), but they are also co-
dependent elements of an abstract, two-dimensional plastic
structure. They function as fragments of a larger visual and
mental organization. They define not only their own local-
ized rectilinear boundaries but also the peripherallasym-
metrical conditions of a contingent, open-ended visual field.
The void between them and the world outside their bound-
aries is no less important than the space they occupy. They
define a localized diptych, and they also define one edge of
a larger horizontal visual field that extends to include the
existing house. Thus the project can be seen to be fundamen-
Fig. 3 tally as much about control of an equivocal visual field, and
186 84THACSA ANNUAL MEETING DESlGNiDESlGN STUDIO 1996

its underlying geometric regulation, as much about the stormy landscape, which is more conventionally expressed at
tension between edges and centers and about framing and the lower right corner of the collage, where evidence of a cliff
wall raking upwards to the right, sea and sailboat, if not also star
making windows on m a n y levels, as it is about objecthood and clouds of an atmosphere or sky are discernible. Perhaps this
and other symbolic, narrative content. And in this way it head, which is deployedlfractured laterally across the surface
operates primarily in the metonymic mode, which fore- of the work, may also be understood as the simultaneous view
grounds the contiguous, horizontal equivalence o f architec- of these same cliffs seen in elevation. Is it not the case that a hint
ture and the picture plane, of elevation and window, of the of the sea rests on the surrogate horizon-line at the top of the
chair-caning? The oblique cliff walls are even reiterated by a
vertical surface (visual field) and painting.
fragment isometrically projected on the surface of the chair-
caning at the center of the composition. It is at this point, the
center, that cliff, bottle, and human chin rnight be seen as
NOTES coming together to form the symbolic joint, or pivotal column,
I Golding discusses the differences between collage and papier about which hinges the interconnection of the three traditional
genres of painting. In a stroke of brilliance, Picasso also uses
colle, generally, as well as the specific differences in the way
Picasso and Braque each employed the two media (104-1 13). the chair caning to suggest a frame for viewing the landscape
As Golding writes: "Braque's first papier colle... already shows beyond, a landscape whose horizon-line between land, sea, and
a full and sophisticated command of the medium. The three sky is pulled across the surface of the caning. Inasmuch as "jou"
strips of wood-grained paper boldly establish the basic compo- means play, Picasso seems to be commenting on the play and
sition of the picture to which the object is subsequently related interplay of many things: the interplay of traditional genres-
by overdrawing. Each strip has a clear representational func- still-life, portraiture, landscape; the play among t he multiplic-
tion: the two uppermost suggest wood-panelled walls behind ity of surrogate horizon-lines within our field of vision; the play
the still life, while the lower one by the addition of a circular between realism (through the device of incorporating actual
knob becomes the drawer of the table on which it stands" (109). pieces of reality within the picture) and illusionism (through the
Two competing oblique forces are generated by the words anti-analytical cubist device of bas-relief, which underlines the
"BAR" and "ALE." One force operates in the xy-plane and three-dimensional quality of the picture). In fact, it is this last
affirms the reality of the surface. The other force appears to point that causes us to see the more Cezannian approach to
operate in the xz-plane and suggests the illusion of depth pictorialism that Synthetic Cubism recalls. For unlike the high-
parallel to the horizon. The blurring of the spatial condition of point of Analytical Cubism, in which the reality of the two-
the "B" in "BAR" and the wood grain compounds the ambigu- dimensional picture surface all but shut down an opposing
ity. Braque thereby causes us to consider the coexistence of two reading of the illusion of depth, Picasso's synthetic bas-relief
windows: the first window is spatially centripetal and is con- construction posits a dialectic. We confront the essential ten-
fined to the top center of the painting (this is reinforced by the sion between material reality (the flatness of the painting
assertion of a smaller rectangular painting or mirror within the surface) and optical reality (the three-dimensional plasticity of
window); the second window is spatially centrifugal and ex- the exterior world). Mark Linder reminds us that this double-
tends, through the illusion of oblique recession, to include the sided "structure of pictorialism"- realism and illusionism -
upper right edge of the picture frame and the implied infinite is at the very center of modernism, including modernist criti-
expanse beyond the boundary of the collage. cism, and he points to Rowe's essay on La Tourette as a
Since writing this paper, I have taken another look at the compelling example (26).
Picasso. I now see new layers of meaning. In the interest of To return for a moment to the matter of Picasso's oval frame.
expediency (and in light of my interest in Russian formalism We might well read it as the deformation of the traditional
and the self-referential technique of baring the devices of a formats employed for these genres. That is to say, that the
work, including the devices of second-thoughts and narrative horizontal was typically used for landscape and the vertical for
disorder), I introduce these observations as a lengthy note, portraits. The oval is some deformed model in between. Inas-
rather than rework the entire paper. It is possible to read in much as its major axis is horizontal, it can perhaps be construed
Picasso's collage the presence of fragments of his analytical as signaling a dominant reading of the painting as, ultimately,
paintings. Compare, for example, the upper central passage of an interior landscape. Thus it might be read as the idealized
the still-life with L 'AJficionado, 1912. (fig. 4). We now under- condition of still-life, which ultimately contains the other two
stand the project to be as much a portrait - or cameo - as a genres as well. And if we consider that the illusion of the seal
still life. Though veiled through the usual analytical devices of landscape might well be the phenomenal act of Picasso's
fragmentation and complexity, the presence of a human figure, referring to a painting within a painting-that is to say, that the
which we understand to be seated in the chair, is evident. outdoor scene, in addition to referring to an actual outdoors
Whether reflected in a mirror or physically present at the table beyond the life of the still-life could also be the evocation of the
of the still-life, the eyes of this virtual person gaze back at us presence or memory of a painting within the interior ofthe room
through the same ovalieye lens through which we look into the and thus function as one of the objects projected onto the
picture. Reassemblage of the anatomical elements is required. tablescape - then we have further reason to understand the
But ears, mouth, nose, and at least several sets of eyes are simultaneity of competing incident within this self-referential,
discernible. Thus at work in this remarkable construction are symbolistioptical construct. Perhaps we may now understand
many events that continue the Cubist investigation of genre the rope-frame of the oval as the symbolic device that ties all
blurring and morphological deforming of idealized, in this case these disparate pictorial acts together. For within this eye is the
anatomical, models. My reading that Picasso is here seeking to simultaneous presence of multiple concerns, including the
achieve an awakening to the abstract, yet semantically con- following: blurring of the three genres of painting; simultaneity
nected structure of anatomical components, is confirmed by his of architectural drawing conventions (plan, elevation, perspec-
famous remark: "A head... was a matter of eyes, nose, mouth, tive, and isometric); and tension between realism and illusion-
which could be distributed in any way you like - the head ism on the one hand and between romantic imagery and
remained a head" (Bois, 90). This head is also part of a larger analyticalicerebral assertion on the other.
841H ACSA ANNUAL MEETING DESIGNIDESIGN STUDIO 1996 187

WORKS CITED AND CONSULTED

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