Nothing could better illustrate Picasso's inexhaustibly varied genius than this picture, so 'out of character' in its apparent lack of any subject. Its general organization suggests that Picasso intended a private matching of strenghts with the Dutch artist Piet Mondrain, whose abstract style was similarly based on flat, bright colours and compartmentalized geometric shapes.
But in Picasso's painting there is a subject - the artist in his studio - although most of its components have been brilliantly rendered with a few lines, reminscent of the wire sculpture that was beginning to interest Picasso at about the same time. On the left stands the artist, his easel indicated only by a circle (standing for the thumb-hole) and his poised brush by a single diagonal line. His models are a jug or bowl and a white marble or plaster bust which stand on a table covered with a red cloth. This vituoso canvas is executed in a style to which Picasso never returned, and is consequently unique among his works.
