Picasso: A Biography

by Patrick O'Brian

  A striking thing about these portraits is that Picasso, who ordinarily never required a model but who drew upon his astonishing visual memory for any head, body, or scene, however complex, now made his sitters pose for long and repeated sessions.

  Picasso and Cézanne had this in common: when they were working on a picture it was the most important thing in life—it was life itself. Then with the last stroke it would die. Sometimes Cézanne would abandon his pictures under olive-trees: and moved by the same impulse or rather creed Picasso said, “A finished work is a dead work, killed,” and he was very unwilling to give the last mortal stroke. Yet in this as in everything else Picasso was full of apparent inconsistencies: the man who maintained that the “Demoiselles d’Avignon” was never finished and who spent months and months on Vollard’s portrait would also dash off three pictures in a day; he did not leave a few dozen laboriously perfected paintings behind him but several thousand; and although he said that his work was of no interest to him once it was done he would fly into a pale rage if he saw one of his pictures, or Cézanne’s, varnished, cleaned, or interfered with in any way. What is more, although the whole of his work was carried out in contemptuous defiance of the critics, he was exceedingly sensitive to approval: even in his eighties he would still show people his work, piling the canvases up in a tottering pyramid and watching intently for the reaction.

  By early 1910 he was firmly settled at 11, boulevard de Clichy. Spring saw the congestion in his studio reach its customary pitch; musical instruments—more mandolins, guitars, violins—invaded his canvases and Braque’s; and when summer came he and Fernande went to Spain once more, this time to Cadaqués, a Catalan fishing-village on what is now so widely known as the Costa Brava. It is a beautiful little place running down to a sheltered rocky bay on the sunny side of a cape reaching far out into the Mediterranean, and on calm evenings the aromatic scent of the mountains behind wafts down to the harbor. In those days never a tourist was to be seen, but the Pichot family had a house there, where they spent their holidays.

  Picasso, Fernande, and the massive Frika traveled down with Ramon Pichot’s married sister Maria, now a well-known singer, and several of her friends: apart from the pleasure of her company, and Picasso had known her since they were both adolescents, it was cheaper to travel in a group; and although he was now richer than he had ever been he was still far from wealthy—extravagance still alternated with something like the old penury, and on one occasion, hard pressed for money, he was obliged to sell almost all his sculptures (one was of Alice Derain) to Vollard, who, in his secretive way, had them cast in bronze and kept them out of sight for years. The Picassos did not stay with the Pichots, however, since the Derains were coming from Cagnes to join them, but they often went over to that hospitable, crowded house, full of painters, poets, and musicians.

  Derain can hardly be said to have been a Cubist painter in the full sense, but he was much attached to Picasso, whose work he so admired; and although he could not go all the way with him—he was too much wedded to color, among other things—during this summer at Cadaqués he did paint some still-lives of a strongly Cubist character, paintings far more balanced and classical than those of his Fauve period. But Derain’s Cubism was much nearer to Cézanne than to Picasso; he had not passed through the same severe process of self-doubt, trial, error, and discovery as his friend, and the difference between the two men is apparent when one compares Derain’s “Pichets de Grès” with the “Nu” that Picasso painted at the same time: the one a delightful picture to have on the wall, warm, friendly, and eminently decorative, in no way disturbing; the other austere, cerebral, and ultimately far more rewarding.

  Picasso painted hard at Cadaqués; but even for Picasso a holiday was not entirely work. He and his friends spent a good deal of time lying in the sun, bathing, playing about in the Pichots’ boats, and placidly fishing for those dark purple sea-urchins which, being brought from the bottom with a split reed and cut in two, are so good with aioli, bread, and wine. Josep Palau has a pleasant account of Picasso, the Pichots, and the Derains setting out for more urchins in the larger boat, the Nabucodonosor, and of their getting no farther than the little islands called Es Cucurucu in the mouth of the bay, because Frika, left on shore, saw fit to prove her fidelity by swimming after them; and there can hardly have been room for a wet dog the size of a calf as well as all the baskets and the crew.

  They also went to Figueras, the nearest place with a bull-ring; and here the infant Dalí, a native of the town, may have beheld them, Derain wearing a brilliant tie that he had bought in the market. And to Barcelona: Picasso’s health and spirits always revived in Spain; so did his appetite. He gave up his unnatural abstinence from wine, and at one place down by the port, where very salt ham might be eaten in any quantity for the same stated sum, he and Derain drank so much that their women were obliged to lead them away.

  In the autumn they went back to Paris, leaving the best part of the year behind them, the grape-harvest and the perfect autumn days; for although Picasso never showed his work at the Indépendants or the Salon d’Automne he was as delighted by these exhibitions—the crowd, the innumerable friends and acquaintances, the gossip, the occasional new ideas—as those who did.

  Braque too returned, bringing with him his summer’s pictures from L’Estaque, mostly still-lives and figures, including his own girl playing a mandolin, and a few landscapes: all very much on the same lines as Picasso’s from Cadaqués. Some were painted on oval canvases, and for a while both he and Picasso thought this a good way of dealing with corners; for while the sharp angles of an ordinary frame might harmfully reduplicate the geometrical forms in some of their compositions, the curve emphasized their austerity.

  This austerity increased throughout the coming year, and with it the analytic process: although the original object was always perfectly clear to Picasso, others found its presence still harder to detect. Yet in these lush days of the Belle Epoque, in a Paris filled with a hopelessly degenerate and commercialized Modern’ Style and with the not dissimilar vulgarities of official art, many painters were fascinated by these rigorously-composed, uncompromising pictures; they saw them as a most radical and convincing break with the past, far greater than Neo-Impressionism in any of its various forms, and as a living hope for the future. Many became Cubists, at least according to their understanding of the form, and when the next Salon des Indépendants came round in the early summer of 1911a whole room was given up to their pictures: and even that was not enough—Cubist works, including some of Archipenko’s sculpture, were scattered through the rest of the exhibition. The critics were angry, of course: he Journal spoke of “the pictures’ novelty, which is a return to barbarism and primitive savagery, a repudiation and an utter abasement of all the beauties in life and nature,” while even Andre Salmon said, “Let us just remind these ‘innovating’ young masters that Cubism was invented five years ago by a Spanish painter after long, rambling aesthetic discussions with philosophers, poets, and mathematicians. At first it seemed a harmless metaphysical caper. But Picasso laid the first stone, the first cube, of the temple; and it was not the most praiseworthy thing he ever did.” Only Apollinaire in L’Intransigeant held out, though weakly: “At the present moment we see an art taking shape, a spare and disciplined art whose still somewhat severe aspect will soon grow more human.”

  As far as Picasso and Braque were concerned he was mistaken. In the course of 1911 and 1912 their painting, drawing, and engraving grew more ascetic still as they moved to high and then to higher Cubism; dun and pale ocher was their utmost indulgence in color; and less being more they limited their vocabulary, apart from figures and musical instruments, to a few common and apparently trivial objects such as pipes, goblets, pots, and bottles. And between 1908 and 1913 they either did not sign their pictures at all or signed them on the back, partly to avoid any interference with the taut rhythm of the composition and partly for the sake of impersonality. Theirs was an art primarily
concerned with forms, as Picasso observed, with those forms in themselves and their rhythm, not with extraneous associations. The result was a language incomprehensible to those who used the wrong key, and when in 1911 the enterprising Alfred Stieglitz first introduced Picasso to the Americans with a collection of drawings and prints, one nude, admittedly a difficult, highly analysed work, was held to be a fire-escape.

  But as far as Apollinaire’s prediction applied to most of the latter-day Cubists it was right, if color and legibility are more human than a deliberately restrained palette and statements limited to forms for their own sake—if flamboyant Gothic is more human than pure Romanesque. This is not the place for a history of Cubism in general; but a life of Picasso must speak of his influence on the painting of his time: it must glance at the converts.

  They can scarcely be called his followers, partly because Picasso had no notion of founding a school—he had no time for disciples, still less for explanations; and partly because some of them knew far more about Cubism than its inventors. Confronted with the earlier Cubist pictures they felt a strong aesthetic emotion, and very soon they produced theories to show why they felt it: as early as 1912 Gleizes and Metzinger published a book on the subject, and several others followed. The theories were ingenious but not much more convincing than Apollinaire’s “In the following year [1906] Derain and Picasso became friends, and the almost immediate result of this friendship was the birth of Cubism”; and they did not enable their authors to paint interesting pictures.

  But there were also men of far greater value who were drawn to Cubism, men whose language was paint or sculpture: among them Leger, Picabia, Delaunay, La Fresnaye, Le Fauconnier, Dufy for a while and Friesz, Lhote, Kisling, Herbin of the Bateau-Lavoir, Survage, Marcoussis, Diego Rivera, Mondrian, Archipenko, Brancusi, Lipchitz, and perhaps the most important of them all, the three brothers Jacques Villon, Duchamp-Villon, and Marcel Duchamp. Several of these, together with Apollinaire and the American Walter Pach, formed the Groupe de Puteaux, which met at Jacques Villon’s studio, where they worked out their several ideas of what Cubism was and what it should be. They differed from one another and they differed from Braque and Picasso: Delaunay, for example, was unorthodox from the beginning; he insisted upon the role of light and color, and presently he moved on, or off, to a painting that Apollinaire baptized Orphism: Léger’s variations earned him the name of Tubist: Marcel Duchamp introduced movement: Jacques Villon described himself as an Impressionist-Cubist, and he refused to abandon his subtle shades: and in time many of the others relinquished the object entirely and with it all reference to reality, their pictures becoming wholly abstract. But all these differences were nothing compared to the difference between the Cubists’ work and any painting that had been seen before: the Cubist revolution was fundamental; the “Demoiselles d’Avignon” had changed the very nature and concept of painting, and it could never be the same again.

  Some of the Cubists were not wholly convinced; Marie Laurencin, for instance, had been drawn into the movement by her friendship for Apollinaire, Braque, Picasso, and the other painters of the Bateau-Lavoir and she soon returned to her own manner; and some few, excited by the prodigious outcry and publicity, may have jumped on to the band-wagon, for superficially a Cubist painting, like an abstract, seems an easy thing to fake. But for most it was a matter of the greatest importance, nothing less than the acceptance of this wholly new approach, with all that it implied of renunciation of former values, certainties, and comfort of mind, as well as comfort of living. And if martyrdom is a proof of religion, then the voluntary giving-up of a livelihood is a proof of artistic conviction. Marcoussis was a case in point: like so many of the Cubists he was an excellent draughtsman, and he made a good income by supplying La Vie Parisienne with drawings: his connection with Picasso not only deprived him of this resource but also, though this was less voluntary, of his mistress, who preferred his master. It was Marcoussis’ conversion, by the way, that convinced the skeptical Salmon that Cubism was something more than a metaphysical prank.

  But Picasso was not interested in proselytizing; nor did he ever attend the gatherings at Puteaux. He was too busy with his own work, which at this point included engravings to illustrate Max Jacob’s Saint Matorel, which Kahnweiler, following in Vollard’s footsteps as a publisher, was to bring out in 1911, as he had earlier brought out Apollinaire’s L’Enchan-teur pourrissant, with wood-engravings by Derain. Jacob’s book was one of the results of his religious conversion: Christ had appeared to him on the wall of his studio in September 1909, sometimes moving, sometimes still. Derain did not feel capable of illustrating it, but Picasso had no such hesitations and he produced four capital plates for his friend.

  Friendship also determined the place for Picasso’s summer holiday. This was Céret, a little town in French Catalonia, not far from Matisse’s Collioure; it lies in the Pyrenean foothills, a remarkably green, well-watered spot, famous for its cherries; and it was here that Manolo had retired in 1908, with his wife Totote and a contract, arranged by Picasso, with the long-suffering Kahnweiler. Manolo, now an established sculptor, never made the least bow towards Cubism, preferring the ideas of his fellow-Catalan Maillol, who lived at the nearby Banyuls; but this had not the least effect upon Picasso’s affection for him, an affection that also embraced Totote, a remarkable woman with a fascinating husky voice: she belonged to a good Breton family, but disagreeing with their values, she became a barmaid in Paris. Later she and Manolo adopted a daughter, Rosita, to whom Picasso was much attached.

  Quite early in the year, probably in mid-May, Picasso set out; and this time he traveled without Fernande. It may be that she hesitated to make a journey of six hundred miles and more with Frika, the ape, and all the easels, canvases, and baggage: but she was to come on later, and in the meantime Picasso would have the company of Braque and several other friends from Paris and Barcelona.

  Although Céret had been politically French since the time of Cardinal Richelieu, and although politically it had been Spanish before that time, it remained stubbornly Catalan, and both Picasso and Manolo were entirely at home there. They had the familiar language all around them; the bullring was a natural feature of the town; and on holidays the people danced the sardana, the only dance that Picasso approved of, to the sound of the harsh archaic oboes and the little drum.

  One of the best-known paintings of that fruitful summer of 1911 is an echo of the dance: it is usually called “La Clarinette,” but its real point of departure is, I believe, the outwardly similar instrument that the Catalans call a tenora, and the rhythms of the picture seem to me connected with the rhythm of the dance. An even better-known picture is “L’Accordeoniste,” a shimmering great canvas alive with transparent planes, Picasso’s last analysis of a man sitting in a chair with his accordion drawn out in a descending diagonal: but it is now housed in the New York Museum of Non-Objective Painting. Even then Picasso and Braque felt that for others the hermetic aspect of their Cubism might tend to do away with the vital tension between the original object and the resulting picture, since for the tension to have its full effect some hint at least of the starting-point must be sensed. They therefore began to scatter “realistic” clues, such as the trompe-l’oeil nail in Braque’s “Violon et Palette” of 1910 and the large printed letters in Picasso’s bottles.

  At Céret Picasso returned to his Spanish ways, working all day and going to the café at night. The Grand Café where he met his friends is still there under the shade of its enormous planes, in whose upper branches the untiring scops owl utters its single note throughout the warm and tranquil night: the marble tables alas have long since been washed clean of Picasso’s innumerable drawings, but a few of the paper napkins that he tore into wonderful shapes and patterns (a lifelong habit) have survived. Yet though he loved conviviality the Grand Café did not see him every night: sometimes his town-bred friends sat there without him; they were happiest with their feet on a pavement and for them a hillside was
something to be viewed from a distance. But Picasso loved the country, and he was a tremendous walker: one evening he and Manolo, lost in talk, went on and on until they found themselves at Le Perthus, at the frontier itself. They could go no farther, for Manolo was liable to be taken up the moment he set foot in Spain, imprisoned and made to do his military service; but it was quite far enough, since even if they had gone through the vineyards it was at least twelve miles there and twelve miles back.

  It is interesting to reflect upon the state of Picasso’s studio, with a dog, an ape, and an intensely busy painter in it and no woman, not even such a moderate housekeeper as Fernande. For August had come, and she was still in Paris. Picasso wrote to her; and if a proof of the quality of his French after a seven-years cohabitation with a monoglot Frenchwoman and an even longer use of the language were wanting, the letter provides it.

  8 AOUT 1911

  MA CHERE FERNANDE

  Ier de toute la journe je ne ai pas eu de letre de toi et ce matin que je I’atandais non plus esperons que cete apres midi je serai plus eureux.

  Dans une letre que jai reçu ce matin de Braque je vois que K. est arrivé dejà a Paris allors je espere que dans tres peu de jours vous serez ici

  Il fait ici un peu plus frais et le soir ont est bien de chaleur.

  Ne te preocupe trop pour I’argent ont le arrangera.

  Prenez le train que je ai pris il et le meilleur. Maintenant je crois que tu vas venir bientott. Braque me dit que la semaine prochaine vous arriverez ici

  Ma famille sont a Mahon depuis quelque temps deja.

  Tu ferais bien de porter ton ombrelle si tu veux sortir dans la journe.

  Le singe il et asez rigolo ont le a doné une couvercle de un boite en fer blanc et il pase sa journé à se regarder il et tres inteligent

  Le trabail marche tout jour je trabail toutjourd à les même choses.