The Fruit Bowl

Gris collaborated with his friend, the poet Pierre Reverdy, on a commissioned book, but the project stalled during World War I and remained unfinished at the time of Gris’s death. A reduced version, with color lithograph reproductions of eleven of Gris’s original still lifes, was published some thirty years later. The Reverdy poem that accompanies this image is titled “Compotier” (“The Fruit Bowl”): A hand reaches toward the arrangement of fruit and, like a bee, hovers over it. The circle where the fingers glide is drawn tight as a trap—then they resume their flight, leaving at the bottom of the dish a bright red scar. A drop of blood, of honey, on the fingertips. Between light and teeth, the web of desire weaves the bowlful of lips.