Within this particular composition, we first see the mandola itself, with the long handle protruding out from the centre of the canvas. The sound hole also confirms its identity. To its left, and just above, is the metronome, which is the triangular shape with written musical pages alongside in white. The rest of the scene is very hard to decipher, which is typical of an artist who had now fully embraced this new approach and was moving more and more into the world of abstraction. One can study this journey by browsing his work from previous years, with a clear transition across several artworks. There were more modernist works from about two years previous, where items were all far more accurate to reality and therefore easier to identify.

The jutting shapes remind one of a dense cityscape, with abrupt corners of buildings. The colour scheme is subdued, almost industrial in finish. The rare curves used will actually remind some of the work of Fernand Leger, whose paintings also fell into the cubist movement. Picasso would collaborate with Braque for a number of years as they aimed to bring a consistency to these new ideas which would help them to gain academic backing for this modern new movement. Eventually it would come, but many initially were shocked by the rejection of reality by these artists, when everyone knew they could have painted in more traditional styles if they had wanted.

All in all, there remains a great respect for the achievements of both of these artists and the painting displayed here is a good example of a movement that they built from scratch themselves. It continues to draw interest today and is amongst the most popular modern art movements within Europe and North America.