Picasso tended to paint those things that surrounded him and in the early spring of 1940 he painted several fish still lifes while he was staying in the fishing port of Royan The ostensible subject of the painting is a fishmongers slab with a crab and a pair of scales containing two or three soles In spite of their predicament these sea creatures look very much still alive It is not very easy to read the painting because Picasso has treated the composition in terms of a flat pattern of overlapping and interlocking transparent planes This the thin delicately brushed paint and the cool undemonstrative colours give the painting the appearance of an underwater world of slowmoving calm and harmony But this is disturbed by what seems to be an impending battle between the fish baring their teeth and the crab with its open claws Those sharp pointed forms are echoed by the scales Even the chain going round one of the fish takes on a more sinister aspect There is an undercurrent of menace and barely suppressed violence that gives the picture a symbolic edge