Tasse et Bananes (Cup and Bananas) is a deceptively simple still life by Pablo Picasso, created in 1908 at a key transitional moment in his artistic development. Painted in oil on panel, the work bridges his Post-Impressionist explorations and the radical innovations of early Cubism. Though modest in scale and subject—depicting a cup flanked by two pieces of fruit—the painting is rich in tonal depth, spatial ambiguity, and formal experimentation, revealing Picasso’s deep engagement with the legacy of Cézanne and his growing interest in abstraction.

At first glance, Tasse et Bananes is restrained in palette and composition. A subdued range of ochres, browns, greys, and muted greens define the picture’s atmosphere. The scene is composed of a single white cup, rendered with subtle modulation of light and shadow, resting on a flat surface with two rounded, organic forms that appear to be bananas or perhaps unripe fruit. Behind the central forms, the backdrop is made up of broad, gestural strokes, abstracting the space into overlapping planes of warm brown.

The brushwork is visible and deliberate. The objects are outlined with soft, earthy transitions, lacking the clean contours of earlier academic still life. The cup’s form is geometric yet softened, sitting slightly off-center, which subtly disrupts the traditional compositional symmetry of still life painting. The fruit—partially obscured—blends into the surrounding space, emphasizing volume through tonal contrast rather than linear perspective.

There’s a quiet tension between solidity and dissolution. The cup and fruit do not sit comfortably on a table as in traditional still life; instead, they float within a shallow, indeterminate space. This ambiguity is key to understanding Picasso’s experimentation with pictorial depth and perspective at the time.

1908 was a critical year in Picasso’s development. It marks the threshold between the structured, volumetric works inspired by Paul Cézanne and the analytical rigor of early Cubism, which Picasso would begin to fully develop in the years that followed. Tasse et Bananes reflects this intermediary stage, where objects are still recognizable, yet abstracted through form, colour, and space.

The influence of Cézanne is palpable—not only in the subject matter of fruit and domestic objects, but in the way Picasso dismantles traditional perspective and flattens space into intersecting planes. The emphasis on volume and geometry, especially in the cup’s base and the play of horizontal bands in the background, anticipates the fractured logic of Cubism. While the painting does not exhibit the full deconstruction of form that would define Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) or Houses on the Hill, Horta de Ebro (1909), it clearly reveals Picasso’s growing fascination with structure over illusion.

Moreover, the limited palette and earthy tones foreshadow the ochres and muted greys of the early Cubist palette, which would dominate his work from 1909 to 1912.

Tasse et Bananes is more than a simple still life—it is a meditative exercise in form, weight, and space. In this work, Picasso strips away decorative excess to focus on the underlying structure of things. It reflects his move away from representation toward abstraction, not through radical rupture, but through quiet, persistent experimentation. The painting stands as an important marker on the path to Cubism and a testament to Picasso’s genius in rethinking even the humblest of subjects—a cup and fruit—as the building blocks of modern visual language.

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