ABSTRACT
Cubist papiers collés are artworks in which papers are either pasted or pinned to a larger support. In his papiers collés, Picasso seemingly nonsensically painted white drawing paper white. Picasso used white Ingres drawing papers of the laid type produced out of rags. While we cannot determine the exact nature or brightness of the white Ingres papers Picasso used, we can say they were most likely “white.” It is possible that by painting the paper white and then applying charcoal or pencil, Picasso wanted to imitate the support of metalpoint drawing. Second, Picasso might have provided the papers with a white layer of paint to approximate the ground of the painterly canvas. And finally, the idea can be entertained that Picasso desired to obtain a paper that was “whiter than white.” In fact, the color white and its brightness appear to have been Picasso's main concern. In short, his actions could have had two objectives. The first was an intellectual, that is to say a tautological one that came in the spirit of the Cubist enterprise. The second was the need to fix its definitive color, to establish contrasts of whites and to invert the principle of the ground layer.
