Pablo Picasso

The double S in Picasso, two paths that snake their way along without ever meeting, a trace of the many facets of the boy from Malaga born on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The two S’s, two reptiles that are his legs, his hands, his eyebrows looking up to the sky in a constant appreciation.

He left a Spain that was not ready for his revolution, for his tremendously physical manifestation of the war in black and white, or serene silhouetted faces stripped of all sentimentality. His Andalusian roots followed him wherever he went and even though Malaga didn’t feel the force of his footsteps throughout most of his lifetime, she yearns for them today.

Anti-theoretician and undisciplined, his artistic spirit emerged with every flick of the wrist. Picasso didn’t understand logical structures. His work was pure expression devoid of cynicism. From First Communion (1896) to his final Self-portrait (1972), The Young Ladies of Avignon (1907) posed for him and The Bathers (1918) waited for him on the beach year after year. In his wake remains Guernica (1937) - mutilated, dehumanized and dark.

The fury of his brushstrokes is a testament to his enthusiasm for life, tragedy and romance. Picasso devoted his life to capturing them on canvas, in clay or in the words of his quixotic poetry. “I am an old painter and a new poet,” he joked. “Perhaps some day, when I am gone, I will be described in dictionaries in the following way, ‘Pablo Ruiz Picasso: poet and playwright. Some paintings by him are still preserved’.”

He plucked flowers only to leave them naked and then dressed them up in oil, clay, ink and the scent of awkward gypsies. He turned everything on its head for the world to see it from a different perspective. Lewd sex laid bare to all in candid scribbles. He crossed the line and then he destroyed it.

Alberti, Buñuel, Aleixandre, Cocteau, Bergamin, Breton and Guillen wrote for and about him. They called him Beltenebros - the Prince of Darkness - revolution and mastery. Neither the arms of Eva, Olga, Françoise, Marie-Thérèse or Jacqueline could unravel web of his gaze made up of ideas, images, muses, a conservative Malaga and a Paris floating in bohemian mist. To disentangle the web would have turned Picasso into Pablo. Just one of many.

“Let the eyes of that Andalusian captivate me,” declared the sixteenth century Spanish poet Luis de Gongora, whose work Picasso illustrated and calligraphed in Gongora and to whom Picasso was often linked (Gongora’s name in Spain was at the time synonymous with everything that was dark or esoteric). Although he was born over three hundred years earlier, Gongora may well have been referring to Picasso.

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