My friend Paulo, Pablo Picasso’s eldest son, had mentioned he could still get me a ticket for the loge d’honneur —the seats of honor, reserved for the most important visitors —at tomorrow’s end-of-season, biggest-of-the-year-1961 bullfight in Arles. Of course I grabbed the opportunity to see the best and most revered toreros in the world at work and having the privilege of witnessing six magnificent bulls being put to stylish but bloody death by true masters in the art of tauromachie.
When Paulo pointed out that his father, together with a few other family members, would also be at the corrida, I became even more interested. As so many millions of people, I was of course familiar with the name Pablo Picasso, the giant of twentieth-century art and surely the most successful and richest painter in the world. But I had never met the man. Well, the coming corrida was as good a place as any to get to see him up close.
As usual, the bullfight would take place late in the afternoon at Les Arènes, the impressive stone amphitheatre located in the old heart of Arles, dating from Roman times. When we finally got to Les Arènes and found our way to the front row of the loge d’honneur, the huge stone oval was already packed with more than 20,000 anxious fans of the rivetting spectacle of bullfighting. A rippling sea of movement, color, and sound enclosed the bullring where the surface of smoothed-down sand awaited the arrival of the players in today’s show.
Paulo introduced me to his father, his stepmother, Jacqueline, and his lovely sister, 17-year-old Paloma. The small, stocky, balding Pablo grinned a bit when we touched fingers in the Mediterranean way of shaking hands and with a twinkle in his eye said: "Holland, eh, how are the corridas there, any good bulls?" When I assured him there was no bullfighting at all in Holland, Picasso looked at me as if I had escaped from another planet. "What, no corrida, how can you live like that? Must be pretty boring!" I was sure the man was joking. He then occasionally explained to me some of the finer points of his beloved tauromachie, an activity he considered essential to living fully. So much for my opportunity to have a profound discussion with this creative genius on the ups and downs of modern art.
Of the few photographs I managed to take of the Picasso family, I am especially pleased with the one that captures the three main characters: Jacqueline at bottom-left, showing her famous profile immortalized by her husband in so many paintings; the man she slavishly adored and always reverently called Monseigneur (His Highness, His Grace) in the centre, a cigarette in his left hand and listening to somebody off camera; and the obviously curious Paloma with a flower in her hair, looking directly at the camera over her father’s shoulder.
What struck me most in Pablo Picasso were his piercing black eyes, like jewels of the darkest coal set in a large face adorned with a grey late-afternoon stubble. When he had looked at me during our introduction, he really looked at me, he saw me, as if he wanted to absorb every visual detail of that person in front of him, maybe storing new images in his mind, ready to be used later in another of his numerous creations, who knows. Remarkably, Paloma possessed the same strikingly dark eyes as her father, perhaps indicating a similar strong, single-minded character.
Picasso’s hands were quite large, with surprisingly long but well-manicured fingernails, and on his left index finger he wore a large silver ring. With these hands the astonishingly productive artist had created at least 40,000 works of art that had rocked the world for many decades since the end of the 19th century. In spite of his deeply lined face with the wide mouth and large nose, he looked much younger than his actual age, reacting to the events and people around him with a youthful vitality and enthusiasm that belied his 79 years.
I have nothing but good memories of my few hours with Pablo Picasso. He was accessible to the people surrounding him who were eager to have their moment with fame. There was no hint of the fiercely self-obsessed tyrant he is said to have been in his private life. Here in this majestic arena he was just a pleasant guy to be with, one of the thousands of aficionados enjoying some superb bullfighting in the glorious sunlight of a warm Provence afternoon.
(Excerpt from my forthcoming book Bonjour Provence!)
Provence People Show - Expo Gens de Provence.
When Paulo pointed out that his father, together with a few other family members, would also be at the corrida, I became even more interested. As so many millions of people, I was of course familiar with the name Pablo Picasso, the giant of twentieth-century art and surely the most successful and richest painter in the world. But I had never met the man. Well, the coming corrida was as good a place as any to get to see him up close.
As usual, the bullfight would take place late in the afternoon at Les Arènes, the impressive stone amphitheatre located in the old heart of Arles, dating from Roman times. When we finally got to Les Arènes and found our way to the front row of the loge d’honneur, the huge stone oval was already packed with more than 20,000 anxious fans of the rivetting spectacle of bullfighting. A rippling sea of movement, color, and sound enclosed the bullring where the surface of smoothed-down sand awaited the arrival of the players in today’s show.
Paulo introduced me to his father, his stepmother, Jacqueline, and his lovely sister, 17-year-old Paloma. The small, stocky, balding Pablo grinned a bit when we touched fingers in the Mediterranean way of shaking hands and with a twinkle in his eye said: "Holland, eh, how are the corridas there, any good bulls?" When I assured him there was no bullfighting at all in Holland, Picasso looked at me as if I had escaped from another planet. "What, no corrida, how can you live like that? Must be pretty boring!" I was sure the man was joking. He then occasionally explained to me some of the finer points of his beloved tauromachie, an activity he considered essential to living fully. So much for my opportunity to have a profound discussion with this creative genius on the ups and downs of modern art.
Of the few photographs I managed to take of the Picasso family, I am especially pleased with the one that captures the three main characters: Jacqueline at bottom-left, showing her famous profile immortalized by her husband in so many paintings; the man she slavishly adored and always reverently called Monseigneur (His Highness, His Grace) in the centre, a cigarette in his left hand and listening to somebody off camera; and the obviously curious Paloma with a flower in her hair, looking directly at the camera over her father’s shoulder.
What struck me most in Pablo Picasso were his piercing black eyes, like jewels of the darkest coal set in a large face adorned with a grey late-afternoon stubble. When he had looked at me during our introduction, he really looked at me, he saw me, as if he wanted to absorb every visual detail of that person in front of him, maybe storing new images in his mind, ready to be used later in another of his numerous creations, who knows. Remarkably, Paloma possessed the same strikingly dark eyes as her father, perhaps indicating a similar strong, single-minded character.
Picasso’s hands were quite large, with surprisingly long but well-manicured fingernails, and on his left index finger he wore a large silver ring. With these hands the astonishingly productive artist had created at least 40,000 works of art that had rocked the world for many decades since the end of the 19th century. In spite of his deeply lined face with the wide mouth and large nose, he looked much younger than his actual age, reacting to the events and people around him with a youthful vitality and enthusiasm that belied his 79 years.
I have nothing but good memories of my few hours with Pablo Picasso. He was accessible to the people surrounding him who were eager to have their moment with fame. There was no hint of the fiercely self-obsessed tyrant he is said to have been in his private life. Here in this majestic arena he was just a pleasant guy to be with, one of the thousands of aficionados enjoying some superb bullfighting in the glorious sunlight of a warm Provence afternoon.
(Excerpt from my forthcoming book Bonjour Provence!)
Provence People Show - Expo Gens de Provence.
1 comment:
It is a brilliant photograph. Congratulations!
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