Juan Gris and Poetry: From Illustration to Creation

Abstract

Gris began his career in Spain as an illustrator of Modernista literature; and in France, he illustrated books by writers of the avant-garde. The actual relationship between poetry and painting was, however, more than mere illustration. “Reading” the Apollinaire and Reverdy texts incorporated into his early collages, it is possible to see that, in one instance, the painting is about the poetry; and in another, the text offers a reading of the painting. Gris manuscripts recently discovered among the papers of Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro—many of whose poems Gris helped render into French—reveal that he went beyond illustrating and translating to create poetry on his own. The much-touted “poetic element” in Gris's work derives from the hitherto unknown fact that he too was a poet.