Pedestal Table in the Studio

Mediums: oil, canvas.
Location: The London Tate Modern Gallery (the UK).

Briefly about the painting:

This still life is typical of Masson’s style of the early 1920s. Placing musical instruments (mandolin, curving body of a guitar) on the table and repeating straight and curved lines unconditionally refer to the pre-war Cubist paintings by Picasso and Braque. However, although some parts of the tools are depicted from more than one point of view, there are no real attempts to use faces, planes or other signs of the Cubist style. As a result, the painting seems to be largely realistic with explicit references to traditional still life. However, some elements (for example, a broken garnet symbolizing horror), strange spatial qualities and a “bleached” gamma indicate a new and individual approach.