After much deliberation, I hope to cut into this complex and passionate person with only two dimensions: art and friendship. The former is the heart of Picasso's emergence, while the latter gives us a reflection of an equally complex and enthusiastic era.
Text / Southern People Weekly reporter Ku Lehao
Edited by / Zhou Jianping [email protected]
"When I die," Picasso once prophesied, "it will be like a shipwreck at sea." When a giant ship sinks, many people around it sink with it. ”
He died, and on the day he was buried, his grandson, Babrito, who was not allowed to attend his grandfather's funeral, attempted suicide by drinking a bottle of potassium chloride whitening agent. Babrito was taken to the hospital, where doctors rescued his life, but his digestive organs were completely lost, and three months later he died of starvation.
The contradiction originated from the competition, Picasso had many lovers in his life, leaving half-children, some people to fight for love, some to love arbitrarily. The tragedy seems to be a metaphor, Picasso is recognized as the greatest and most creative artist of the 20th century, but for those who live with him and share intimate relationships with him, Picasso means destruction, and he always has the ability to keep those around him in the hunger of love.
It's not over yet. Four years later, Picasso's former lover, Marie, carefully chose the day of the 50th anniversary of her encounter with Picasso and hanged herself in the garage of her home. She left a suicide note for her daughter Maya.
"It wasn't just his death that forced her to do so, it was a lot more than his death... Their relationship was so intense that she felt she had to take care of him – even after his death! Their daughter said so.
The claim continues. A few years later, Picasso's widow and his last wife, Jacqueline, is preparing for Picasso's large solo exhibition, which will be held at the Museum of Modern Art in his hometown of Madrid, Spain, on a grand scale, and she has personally selected and arranged each painting, and is still calling the museum director late at night to communicate the details of the exhibition and confirm attendance at the opening ceremony. Three hours after the phone call, she lay in bed and fired a shot at her temple.
……
There are too many similar stories to write about Picasso but not to write, because it is difficult to explain Picasso clearly in just one article, no matter how you write it, it is almost always a leak. The rest is nothing more than multiple choice questions, in the massive amount of material, why write these? Why not write those? How much do we already know about Picasso, a being that has long been labeled as a prestigious one? How much do we wish we knew?
After much deliberation, I hope to cut into this complex and passionate person with only two dimensions: art and friendship. The former is the heart of Picasso's emergence, while the latter gives us a reflection of an equally complex and enthusiastic era. In that era, people experienced war, mourning and destruction, the old order was broken, the new order was called, civilization was reshaped, barbarism roared with the force, the cultural currents of thought that continued from the past and the future emerged, extremely active, extremely rebellious, that was exactly what Picasso and his friends experienced, that multicultural circle involved and intervened in creation, they could be seen as a slice of an entire era, and that era still hangs a long shadow on us to this day.