This Declaration Of The Sign Pabl Picasso

Pablo Picasso was a revolutionary artist of the 20th century who is credited as the inventor of collage. Collage as an art form is the idea that by cutting various elements out and gluing them together on a canvas, the assemblage creates something wholly new. Picasso used this technique in conjunction with his paintings to formulate his experimental works between 1912 and 1913. These collages were very crude and often consisted of only a handful of elements leaving lots of room for interpretation of this nebulosity. In the analysis of these works, Rosalind Krauss argues that these collages are in actuality a series of signs with a strict dichotomy between material and reference. Charles Altieri on the other hand, argues that there exists a

Saussure famously stated how “In language there are only differences” (17). Krauss concurs with this notion not only in language, but in signs as well. In her eyes, every sign is not a reference, but a choice to reference one idea and not another. Krauss explains that “This declaration of the diacritical nature of the sign establishes it as a term whose meaning is never an absolute, but rather a choice from a set of possibilities, with meaning determined by the very terms not chosen” (17). In this sense, there is an active role that the viewer plays in dictating meaning behind signs. Krauss argues however, that this meaning is derived not from the idea presently signified, but from the very ideas that are not there. This notion of a difference is clearly visible in Pablo Picasso’s work, Compote Dish with Fruit, Violin, and Glass (1912). In this piece, there are far more collage components compared to Violin. In the top left, there are five cutouts of fruits within a newsprint cutout of a bowl. To the right, there is a charcoal drawing of the scroll, pegbox, and upper neck of a violin on another newsprint cutout. To the furthest right there is yet another newsprint cutout with a cubist drawing of a wineglass complete with shading. In the middle of the piece there is an eclectic mix of both color and shape. A blue cardstock cutout has the two F-holes and strings of the violin, while directly above it lies an intense black ominous rectangle. To the left of this there are various cutouts and shadings of curves varying in color and orientation. These curves are all placed upon a cutout with wood grain detailing. Finally, at the bottom of the piece there are two white pieces with black sides painted and perpendicular stripes placed in an L-shaped formation, in addition to a newsprint cutout with a semicircle taken out and shading.