Pirandello and Picasso: “Which one of the two of us is crazy?” An Analysis of So It Is (If You Think So) as a Cubist Piece of Literature Esther Oziel College

In Right You Are (If You Think So), Luigi Pirandello questions absolute truth by presenting various and contrasting perspectives of the same objects. The practice of highlighting multiple perspectives by showing several angles of the same object at once is one of the key elements of the Cubist art movement, co-founded by Pablo Picasso. Similarly, Pirandello presents characters from various perspectives of others, providing sometimes incongruous ideas about the same character. Both Cubist works and the characters in Pirandello’s play are fragmented forms in order to emphasize various viewpoints. The effects of Cubism and Pirandello’s work reveal the malleability of universal truth by showing how while one perspective is absolutely true to one person, it can be entirely false for another. The practice of showcasing multiple perspectives in both Cubism and So It Is (If You Think So) denounces the notion of a single unified truth and suggests that one must consider and respect all viewpoints, even if they differ from one’s own.

Cubism is a revolutionary art movement by Braque and Picasso that emerged in the early 1900s and is described as “a movement which denied single point perspective” (Glaves-Smith). It is an art form that...