Unusual Pictures: An Analysis of Some Abnormal Pictorial Structures in a Painting by Juan Gris

Abstract

A distinction is made between pictures which are unusual because of their subject matter (for example, some surrealist paintings), and pictures which are unusual because they are based on unusual pictorial structures. Two kinds of pictorial structures are described: transformation systems, such as oblique projection and perspective; and denotation systems, such as the use of lines to denote edges. It is argued that Juan Gris and other Cubist painters used both these pictorial systems in unusual ways. This argument is illustrated by analysing Gris' 'Breakfast', 1914. The analysis shows that Gris used a number of unusual transformation systems, including vertical oblique projection, inverted linear perspective and inverted atmospheric perspective. The analysis also reveals the use of a number of unusual pictorial structures related to the denotation systems: the use of false attachments, both within the picture and between the picture and theframe; the reversal of the normal rulesfor the representation of occlusion; and the use of real surfaces en collage. It is suggested that Gris used these unusual structures deliberately in order to point to, and investigate, the nature of normal pictorial structures. There are two kinds of unusual pictures: pictures which astonish us because of their unusual subject matter, and pictures which, although their subject matter may be quite ordinary, surprise or puzzle us because of their unusual structure. Pictures of the first type, such as Salvador Dali's 'The Great Masturbator' (1929) may contain objects or scenes which are themselves outrageous or unusual, or they may, like Rene Magritte's 'Time Transfixed' (1939) be made up of ordinary objects combined in incongruous ways. In pictures of this first type, the composition and technique are nearly always realistic, and for a good reason: the more the artist can persuade us to look through the picture surface to the objects themselves, the more likely we are to be shocked or intrigued by the subject matter of the picture. This 'looking through' is also characteristic of the way in which we use most ordinary pictures: we concentrate on what the artist, draughtsman or photographer is saying, rather than how it is being said. With ordinary pictures, we forget that they are contrived, and their surface becomes so transparent that we imagine that we have the real world itself in front of our eyes. What spoils this illusion is when we come across pictures which deal with quite ordinary scenes, but which are based on pictorial structures which are unusual or unfamiliar. Chinese and Japanese paintings, which are based on various kinds of oblique projections rather than perspective, must have seemed extraordinary to Europeans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and, even today, when we are so used to seeing them in reproduction, they still seem strange to us. Pictures of this kind provoke in us the most banal responses: was there something wrong with the artists' eyesight, or were they just not very good at perspective? Similar responses are often provoked by modern paintings, especially perhaps by Cubist paintings like Juan Gris' 'Breakfast' (1914) (Fig. 1). This painting depicts a scene which is both ordinary in itself, and is made up of ordinary objects: cups, glasses, a coffee pot and similar everyday objects on a breakfast table. But although we can identify these objects without much difficulty, they are so jumbled that the picture at first seems almost incomprehensible. Why should anyone want to paint such a confused picture, we wonder? Are our legs being pulled, or does the artist really see the world that way? *Honorary Research Fellow, North East London Polytechnic, Faculty of Art and Design, Greengate House, Greengate Street, London El 5 OBG, U.K. p ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ' Fig. 1. Juan Gris, 'Breakfast', collage, crayon and oil on canvas, 80.9 x 59.7 cm, 1914. Collection, Museum of Modern Art (Lille P. Bliss Bequest), New York. For psychologists, or for people like myself who are interested in pictorial structures, the great merit of pictures of this kind is that they draw our attention away from the subject matter, and make us realise that even the most ordinary pictures must have some kind of a structure. Thus, although unusual pictures may be intriguing in themselves, their chief value for us lies in what