In his biography of Moore, Charles Molesworth speculates that "The Fish" was influenced by the poet's interest in color theory and in writing a poetry that was unsentimental and "critical," as opposed to flowery and expressive. Molesworth notes that, while studying at Bryn Mawr College, Moore would take out books on art and art theory and spend much of her time visiting galleries and discussing art and literature with her friends.

In the second decade of the twentieth century, when this poem was written, the world of art and literature was changing dramatically. Taking the lead from painters Paul Cézanne and Georges Seurat, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque experimented with increasingly more abstract compositions. Their cubist paintings broke down a subject, analyzed it, then reconstructed it in abstract form. Picasso's painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, considered by many to be the first Cubist painting, depicted...