Fruit Dish, Bottle and Violin
- Artist: Pablo Picasso
- Date: 1914
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the "Fruit Dish, Bottle and Violin" by Pablo Picasso. Painted in 1914, it's perhaps the most self-consciously modern picture in our collection, and also our only example of Cubism. This early twentieth-century art movement, initiated by Picasso and his colleague Georges Braque, radically transformed the visual arts, particularly through its rejection of single-point perspective.
At first glance, the painting appears to be entirely abstract, but on closer inspection, parts of several recognisable objects become apparent. You can see a table, an off-white tablecloth with grey tassels, the strings and neck of a violin, part of a newspaper, and a dish of fruit. The artist has shown these objects from more than one point of view - for example, we see the table from the side and also look down at it from above.
Picasso has used a new technique called 'synthetic' Cubism here, where he's built up the picture into an arrangement of lines, shapes, and areas of colour. He's even incorporated actual materials like sand to create texture in some areas. The result is a dynamic composition that rearranges everyday objects and playfully tests our ability to recognise them.
See it in person
Fruit Dish, Bottle and Violin hangs in The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
