Artwork
Trou de la serrure PARTO DA VIOLA Bon ménage Fraise avant garde
Trou de la serrure PARTO DA VIOLA Bon ménage Fraise avant garde is an unspecified painting by the Cubism Analytic artist Amadeo de Souza Cardoso. It dates from 1916 and is held in the collection of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum.
About this work
This painting is called Trou de la serrure PARTO DA VIOLA Bon ménage Fraise avant garde. It was created by Amadeo de Souza Cardoso in 1916. The artist likely explored different themes and ideas in his work, and this piece might be an example of that experimentation. You can learn more about the artist's style and other works at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum.
Overview
Amadeo de Souza‑Cardoso’s 1916 canvas Trou de la serrure PARTO DA VIOLA Bon ménage Fraise avant garde exemplifies his early modernist phase. Executed during his Parisian period, the work now belongs to the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum’s collection and illustrates the artist’s engagement with the analytical branch of Cubism.
Subject & Meaning
The title, a juxtaposition of French and Portuguese phrases, hints at a playful, perhaps surreal, association of everyday objects and intimate scenes. While the precise narrative remains ambiguous, the composition invites viewers to contemplate fragmented realities and the tension between the familiar and the abstract.
Technique & Style
Employing the analytical Cubist vocabulary, Souza‑Cardoso disassembles forms into interlocking planes, muted tonalities, and overlapping perspectives. The painting’s surface is marked by a network of geometric facets that dissolve traditional representation, foregrounding structure over illusionistic depth.
History & Provenance
Created while the artist shuttled between Paris and his family estate in Manhufe, the canvas reflects the cross‑currents of European avant‑garde and Portuguese artistic renewal. It entered the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum’s holdings in the mid‑20th century, where it remains on public display.
Context
Souza‑Cardoso belonged to the first generation of Portuguese modernists, a group that absorbed Parisian innovations and sought to translate them into a national context. Trou de la serrure stands alongside his contemporaneous works that negotiate Cubist principles with personal symbolism.
Legacy
The painting marks a pivotal moment in Portuguese modern art, evidencing how international movements were assimilated locally. Its presence in a major museum underscores Souza‑Cardoso’s role in bridging Iberian artistic traditions with early 20th‑century European abstraction.
Artist & collection
Artist
Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso (14 November 1887 – 25 October 1918) was a Portuguese painter.
