In Montmartre: Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art

by Sue Roe

  The painting had undergone major changes during the six or so months of its gestation. In the sketch Picasso had begun with, there were seven figures: five women accompanied by a man standing to the left of the picture, drawing back the curtain, and, seated at the centre of the group, a sailor. (Was that figure included as Picasso’s irreverent nod to Matisse, and the sailor portraits he had painted in Collioure the previous summer?) In May, Picasso removed the standing man on the left, giving the curtain to one of the female figures, so that the women were effectively now unveiling themselves. Only in June did he remove the sailor seated at the centre. In his fourteenth notebook of sketches, he had reworked the composition, changing the rhythms, turning up the feeling of aggression across the picture and adding a mask to the faces of one of the standing women and the squatting girl in the foreground. The juxtaposition of masked with unmasked figures gave the impression of a painting in two halves. This may have been (as Mailer suggests) one reason why Picasso struggled to complete it, since he seems to have changed his mind halfway through and never worked out how to reconcile the two halves. The depictions of the figures are completely different in each. Perhaps, however, he had set out to extend the ‘splitting’ of the face first seen in Cézanne’s portrait of his wife to the treatment of a group of figures. Also in the final stages, Picasso changed the colour scheme, introducing predominantly pink and flesh tones with blue and white negative spaces, and disrupted the surface of the picture so that the relationship between figures and space became chaotic, splintered, as if the women were at the point of bursting through the painted surface.

  Now, all five women turned to face the spectator in an arrested moment, the surface of the picture about to be – as it were – ‘unpeeled’ by the one on the left; the way the figures are smashed into the background drapery suggests they have just emerged or are about to emerge through a screen. The whole way in which a painting (and, perhaps, a woman) could be viewed seemed to have been subjected to a radical new interpretation. It’s as if Picasso is making the viewer look differently: he challenges the viewer’s traditional assumptions so that the elements of time, the relationship between surface and depth and the function of perspective collapse into kaleidoscopic chaos as the picture seems about to fold back in on itself. Even the traditional painterly prop, the bowl of fruit, normally introduced to establish both perspective and a link to nature and so make the picture more ‘real’, was transformed. Pieces of fruit, unconfined by a container of any kind, are placed not on a table but at the women’s feet – or perhaps just floating in space. Reduced to impossibly minuscule proportions in the foreground, they render the only remaining vestige of traditional composition in the painting absurd; each piece is shrunk from life-size in a dreadful conjuring trick, perhaps an instant earlier, like an absurdly transformed object in one of Méliès’ féerie films. Nothing in Picasso’s sketches gave an obvious indication of this degree of pictorial anarchy in the finished painting. Though the masks appear in a sketchbook, no preparatory drawing of the overall group reflects the stylistic disjunction between the three fleshy figures on the left and the two masked figures on the right. When he was asked later why the picture appeared to be in two ‘halves’, Picasso shrugged off the question, saying he had changed his mind halfway through but decided to leave it as it was, assuming everyone would understand what he meant. No one did.

  The cryptic reactions of Braque and Derain aside, everyone who saw the painting that winter seemed lost for words – except Matisse. The painting struck him as a blatant mockery of all he had been striving for years to achieve; he made no secret of the fact that he saw it as a personal attack. Perhaps that was true. La Joie de vivre, his large Arcadian depiction of a group of female figures revelling in the freedom of their nudity, may have acted as an initial provocation. The next thing everyone wanted to know was: who were the women? Fernande, replied Picasso, was clearly back centre; two of the others were Marie Laurencin and Max Jacob’s grandmother. The artist was joking, of course: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon had nothing to do with painting likenesses. It was an exploration of exaggeration and distortion and an experiment with visual rapports. (Indeed, one of Picasso’s sketches of the top of Fernande’s bowed head bears a passing resemblance to the masked face of one of the figures.) What, then, did this curious work amount to? Was it a cinema still in oils? A cynical urban Arcadia set in a seedy cabaret, Picasso’s anarchic retort to Matisse’s Arcadian ideals? An opium-fuelled muddle? A flawed masterpiece? A masterpiece? There was no name for this kind of painting; nothing like it had ever been seen before. Gertrude Stein had already perceived that it was no longer possible for a painter to say that he painted the world as he saw it, since ‘he cannot look at the world any more, it has been photographed too much’ – photographed, and now filmed, in mesmerizing, sequential images that could be slowed down, speeded up or arrested, subjected to unpredictable, instantaneous transformations before the viewer’s eyes. Perhaps Picasso’s aim in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was to stun the viewer into experiencing the present moment, just for an instant, before the scene changed. Perhaps that was the point: perhaps Picasso’s nude figure group was neither an enduring image nor the illusion of reality but (merely) a projection. As Picasso himself remarked half a century later, ‘You have to give whoever is looking at it the means of painting the nude himself with his eyes.’

  Perhaps it was a masterpiece. As Gertrude Stein wrote some decades later in ‘What are Masterpieces …?’, ‘Everything is against them. Everything that makes life go on makes identity … But what can a masterpiece be about?’ Mostly, ‘it is about identity and all it does and in being so it must not have any’. Picasso had evidently succeeded in producing a dispassionate, disinterested work. His problem now was that, having collapsed the elements of time and proportion and destroyed the traditional rapport between surface and depth, for the time being there seemed nothing left for him to do. And he had shut himself away for too long. On emerging, he discovered that the dealers were still wary of his work, his friends no longer understood him; his relationship with Fernande seemed to have disintegrated. Stein, still on the subject of masterpieces: ‘It is very interesting that no one is content with being a man and boy but he must also be a son and a father and the fact that they all die has something to do with time but it has nothing to do with a masterpiece.’ Picasso put the canvas away again. It would remain out of sight for another sixteen years.

  7.

  New Liaisons

  In the Couvent des Oiseaux, Matisse had gradually been attracting student followers in increasing numbers; by now, the place had acquired the reputation of an organized school. When, in early December 1907, after fifteen years, he moved his family out of their apartment at 10, quai Saint Michel, they settled into the ground floor of a second disused convent, the Sacré-Coeur, at the corner of the boulevard des Invalides and the rue de Babylone. His students now came here for instruction. Amélie’s sitting room looked out across the garden to the Hôtel Biron, where Rodin had his studio. Matisse’s ‘school’ was upstairs on the first floor, where he worked, when not teaching, separated from his students by a screen. The school had been Sarah Stein’s idea, inspired by her experience of being taught by the artist herself. Matisse’s star pupil, she kept careful notes, which constitute a record both of his general views and his advice to individual students as he tried to get them to think holistically about the process of composition: ‘Fit your parts into one another and build up your figure as a carpenter does a house. Everything must be constructed – built up of parts that make a unit: a tree like a human body, a human body like a cathedral … Close your eyes and hold the vision, and then do the work with your own sensibility.’ He showed them ways of connecting with their own work in progress: ‘To feel a central line in the direction of the general movement of the body and build about that is a great aid.’ In sculpture, ‘The model must not be made to agree with a preconceived theory or effect. It must impress you, awaken in you an
emotion, which in turn you seek to express.’ He taught that a drawing is essentially a sculpture, though with suggestively rather than definitively described forms. He introduced them to paintings by Georges Rouault (who had also studied with Moreau in the 1890s and whose work had since been linked with that of the Fauves), van Gogh’s drawings and his treasured possession, Cézanne’s Bathers, which he put silently before them without comment.

  Matisse was clearly the master, Picasso still the rebel. At 27, rue de Fleurus, Alice B. Toklas looked on as Leo took the latter into his study. Picasso emerged furious, complaining, ‘He does not leave me alone. It was he who said my drawings were more important than Raphael’s. Why can he not leave me alone then with what I am doing now?’ Leo, equally riled, slammed the door to the apartment and retreated into his studio. This, observed Alice, was the beginning of the rift between Leo and Gertrude over both Picasso’s painting and her writing. Both were moving in directions of which Leo disapproved. Anyway, Gertrude had had enough of his endless instruction. When Leo appeared and began explaining further, she interrupted him by dropping her books on the floor on purpose.

  Impressively organized and strategically financed though it was, Fernande’s independence was about to prove short-lived. One day, Gertrude asked Alice B. Toklas, ‘Is Fernande wearing her earrings?’ Alice said she didn’t know. ‘Well, notice,’ said Gertrude. Alice reported back that yes, Fernande was wearing her earrings. ‘Oh well,’ said Gertrude, ‘there is nothing to be done yet.’ She was looking for signs that Fernande had pawned her earrings, a pair of gold hoops Picasso had given her which she wore all the time. The disappearance of the earrings would mean she was in trouble financially and unlikely to survive on her own for much longer. A week later, Alice announced that Fernande was not wearing her earrings. ‘Oh well, it’s alright then,’ said Gertrude, ‘she has no money left and it [the break-up] is all over … And it was.’ Picasso and Fernande were together again.

  Shortly before Christmas, they were invited to dinner at the Steins’. The reunion, and perhaps the approaching holidays, seemed to be a cause for celebration. Alice gave Fernande a Chinese gown from San Francisco and Picasso gave Alice a lovely drawing. (Leo and Gertrude’s gift to themselves was Cézanne’s Cinque Pommes (1877–8), which they purchased from the Bernheim-Jeunes on 17 December). Fernande, Alice reasoned, had ‘held Pablo by her beauty’ – at least, for the time being. Fernande gave up her flat and moved back to the Bateau-Lavoir and Alice was pressed fully into commission to provide her with distractions, taking her shopping or to dog and cat shows, anything that would provide them with opportunities for conversation in French. Picasso, Alice somehow deduced, was grateful to her for ‘taking Fernande off his hands’.

  • • •

  One further notable event marked the turn of the year. At around this time ‘a new and alarming development occurred’. When back in San Francisco, Harriet had fallen under the influence of a formidable woman, wife of a High Church curate, who had been trying to bring her to God. One afternoon, she confessed her reluctance to do so to Gertrude, who – with heavy irony – replied that if she didn’t go to God Harriet might as well put an end to herself, since her life would no longer be worth living. (Clearly, by this time, her patience with Harriet was wearing thin. It would fall to Alice, some months later, to arrange for Harriet’s removal from their lives for good.) That night, Alice was woken by Harriet, calling her to come at once. She found her sitting up in bed, announcing, ‘I have seen God.’ Alice was to go straight over to Gertrude and ask her to come at once. When she arrived, Gertrude simply gave one of her ‘large’ laughs, seeing that Harriet had evidently decided that God – even for an atheist – was better than suicide. The matter was discussed with Sarah Stein, a Christian Scientist, who said she would not tolerate Gertrude’s involvement in Harriet’s Christian salvation, whereupon Gertrude replied that she had no wish to be involved. Sarah took it on herself for a while, until forced to admit that Harriet was distracting her from her studies with Matisse, to which she was deeply committed (despite the resentment of the other students, who disapproved of what they saw as Matisse’s favouritism on the grounds that Sarah and her husband were among his major purchasers). To Alice, Gertrude had revealed her own position in the Matisse versus Picasso dispute; she had taken to referring to Matisse as ‘le cher maître, in derision of course’. As for Matisse himself, since the appearance of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, his view of Picasso was that he was ‘unsympathetic as a man and less than negligible as a painter’. He told Gertrude that she went to the Bateau-Lavoir only because it appealed to her sense of drama, which simply made her laugh again. The care of Harriet’s spiritual development now passed to a Swedish sculptor, who confessed he had never before known anyone quite like Harriet.

  For Gertrude and Alice the winter brought happiness. At first, Gertrude ‘diagnosed’ Alice as ‘an old maid mermaid’: ‘the old maid was bad enough but the mermaid was quite unbearable’. However, in ways she was subsequently unable (or too discreet) to recall, the old maid mermaid tag ‘wore thin and finally blew away entirely’. Throughout that winter, Alice continued to live at the Hôtel de l’Univers with Harriet, joining Gertrude most days and evenings for walks or visits to the rue de Fleurus: ‘By the time the buttercups were in bloom, the old maid mermaid had gone into oblivion and I had been gathering wild violets.’ Their relationship had evidently moved into a new gear.

  8.

  The Whole Story

  In the vast, glass, light-filled pavilion of the 1908 Salon des Indépendants, Gertrude Stein found Alice and Harriet seated on a bench before two paintings. ‘You have seated yourselves admirably,’ she said. But why? ‘Because right here in front of you is the whole story.’ She explained that the paintings were by Derain and Braque. Alice had noticed only two large, similar pictures. She now saw that both were of roughly modelled, strange-looking figures, like wooden carvings, one depicting ‘a sort of man and woman’, the other, three women. The latter was surely Derain’s Bathers, a painting of three female figures who look like articulated puppets, faceted from their joints as if suspended on strings. The painting by Braque was surely Grand Nu, depicting a chunky, sculptural figure shown in profile against a fragmented, unfolding background. (It’s as if the figure is in the process of being unwrapped by the ground.)

  When Picasso saw Derain’s painting, he was indignant, since it was clear that, despite his scathing dismissal of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, he had been influenced by the new developments in Picasso’s work (though it is possible – even likely – that Derain had begun, or even completed, the Bathers before seeing the Demoiselles; in any case, by now such ideas were in the air). Tensions were rising. According to Gertrude Stein (who may have been mischievously – or unwittingly – helping the feud along), at the 1908 Salon, ‘the feeling between the Picassoites and the Matisseites became bitter’.

  For Matisse, the exhibition provided a second opportunity to meet Sergei Shchukin, whose life since he first met the artist had been devastated by recent events in Russia. After the violent revolution of 1905, one of his twin sons had disappeared, eventually to be found drowned in the River Moscow; he had committed suicide. Further tragedies had followed. In 1907, Shchukin’s wife died suddenly; in 1908, his brother committed suicide. In the wake of these tragedies, Shchukin spent his days in the Louvre, looking at Egyptian funerary art. He also found solace in Matisse’s work, especially his paintings of nude figures, which for Shchukin evoked extreme emotions. Increasingly, he had begun to collect these, and he now formed a strong bond with Matisse, giving him encouragement, sharing his artistic opinions and taking an active interest in the development of his work. Following the Salon des Indépendants, he commissioned three new works, including a huge decorative panel for his dining room in the Palais Trubetskoy, where the walls were already covered with works by van Gogh, Monet, Gauguin and Cézanne. His increasing patronage came at a time when other opportunities were also finally coming Mat
isse’s way; his work was being shown for the first time in New York, Moscow, London and Berlin. Though Shchukin also purchased several of Picasso’s Blue Period works during 1908, in the Matisse versus Picasso race, Matisse was way ahead in terms of his arrival on the international scene.

  During the previous couple of years, the make-up of the Picasso bande had gradually changed, having altered from the earlier gang of Catalan painters and hangers-on. Though the bande that regularly met in Azon’s included Apollinaire, Max Jacob and Salmon (the latter, as of 1908, now living in a basement studio in the Bateau-Lavoir), the inner circle, once Derain had moved to the rue Tourlaque – at least, by Fernande’s account – had re-formed into a gang of four consisting of Picasso, Derain, Vlaminck and Braque. This was the group that now regularly turned up together at the Steins’.