Still Life with Fruit and Glass

Still Life with Fruit and Glass, created by Pablo Picasso in 1908, is a pivotal work signaling the artist’s full embrace of proto-Cubist principles, moving beyond the influence of Paul Cézanne and setting the stage for Analytical Cubism. Executed in tempera on wood, this piece uses a stable, matte medium that accentuates the calculated rigor of the composition. The choice of panel rather than canvas provides a firm ground, emphasizing the geometric structure inherent in the still life arrangement.

The period of its creation, Paris, fall 1908, was a highly concentrated period of formal experimentation shared between Picasso and Georges Braque. In this painting, the traditional arrangement of everyday objects is subjected to radical intellectual analysis. Picasso deconstructs the fruit, glassware, and surrounding tabletop into simplified, intersecting planes and facets. While the forms are fractured, they remain relatively coherent, establishing multiple viewpoints simultaneously without sacrificing the object’s core identity. The palette is carefully restricted, dominated by earth tones, blues, and ochres, which heightens the focus on form and volume rather than coloristic effect.

The painting serves as a crucial historical document of modernism's emergence. Though created in the international environment of the French capital, the severe, structural approach reflects the enduring legacy of the Spanish intellectual tradition that informed Picasso’s sensibility. This piece demonstrates his relentless pursuit of formal truths and the radical reorganization of pictorial space that would define 20th-century art. The work resides permanently in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). As a foundational example of Cubism, prints of the piece are widely sought after, contributing to its ongoing global recognition. Certain studies and historical references to the work are commonly available within the public domain.