By 1912 controversy over the
validity of Cubism was
more
intense than ever. A number
of new recruits had joined
Picasso and Braque, notably
ihe young Spanish painter
Juan Gris, and the
poet
Guillaume Apollinaire and
other writers were emerging
as propagandists for what was
now a full-scale artistic
movement. Cubist
works were
grouped and shown in
strength at the Salon des
Independants and other
established venues. But the
wider public remained
unconvinced and, as has so
often happened, there were
those who found anything
new immoral rather than
merely unaesthetic: in
France's parliament, the
Chamber of Deputies, Cubism
was denounced as 'anti-artistic
and anti-national'.
Nowadays,
while it is still possible to
appreciate how bewildering
The Violin must have been to
a spectator raised on
conventional narrative and
portrait painting, its lack of
patriotism is apparent only in
the tact that it was painted by
a Spaniard!
