Picasso at Home

"Of the adventurous and inventive spirit which had characterized French, or more exactly Parisian painting . . . hardly a trace remains. All the work produced during the Occupation (except Picasso's . . .) told of a passive, bewildered acceptance of exhausted motives."

This impression of an English visitor to Paris appeared in the April issue of London's Cornhill Magazine. The visitor was John Knewstub Rothenstein, director of London's Tate Gallery, son of the late, famed portraitist-memorist, Sir William Rothenstein. His principal report was on Pablo Picasso, considered by many (including himself) the world's greatest living artist. Excerpts:

Pilgrims & Progress. "Picasso lives in ... a magnificent seventeenth-century house. . . . Visitors cross a spacious courtyard, climb a dark winding tiled staircase to the third floor. ... A long narrow anteroom . . . contains a tall iron stove . . . canvases, paint-boxes, pieces of Negro sculpture, sketches . . . and two rows of kitchen chairs. ... A number of these chairs were occupied [by] Communist politicians . . . art dealers, artists as well as miscellaneous pilgrims.

"Beyond this room is a large studio containing sculpture in progress: a huge classical woman's head and a shepherd, also over lifesize, carrying a lamb. I had barely time to glance at these when Picasso appeared. His large dark eyes, which dominate his face, have a brilliant look of tireless alertness, characteristic of animals rather than of men. . . .

"I followed him up another staircase to a second studio. . . . 'You might like to see these,' he said, bringing [out] a folio of drawings. . . . All variations on the same theme: a young man asleep whom a girl is intently watching. . . .

"I asked him whether he did not find that there was something anomalous in the position of an artist, however illustrious, whose work was, after all, under stood by relatively few, being publicly identified with a popular party, and whether revolutionary art, such as his, was not at bottom even resented by the revolutionary masses." Life & Logic. " 'There is just such a want of accord between the two revolutionary forces,' he conceded. 'But life isn't a very logical business, is it? As for me, I have to act as I feel, both as an artist and as a man.' "There was a pause; he suddenly . . .

said, 'I didn't show you the painting I'm doing now.' And he brought out a still-life of a tomato plant, then another and an other, until there were 21 variations of the subject. 'I usually work on a number of canvases at a time. . . .' (He doesn't disguise or conceal his failures, but he simply tries again, seeing failure and success as parts of the abundant, continuous flow of his creative activity.) " 'There are other things I'd like to show you; besides,' he continued, 'I don't care for working in the morning. I like to work in the afternoons, but best of all at night. You see these thick curtains' -- and he touched the window curtains gently, 'they shut out the daylight: artificial light suits me a great deal better: it's absolutely steady, and much more exciting.' " 'What are these?' I asked, indicating a number of very small canvases standing on the floor, end to end. 'Oh those, don't look at them,' he answered cheerfully, 'they're painted by the dog.' The big dog who dashed in and out of the room at high speed certainly looked intelligent enough to paint." Etchings & Guards. " 'But that re minds me,' Picasso said, 'that I don't believe I've shown you my bathroom.' We . . . saw the bathroom and the little engraving room where his press was. I told him that I counted his early Dejeuner des Pauvres among the very best of his etchings. 'I'm glad you like that one,' he said, giving me a quick, searching look, 'I like it too, and do you know, I never miss a chance of buying a print? I found two in a small shop a month or two ago. Of course one has to pay for them.' "As I was leaving I told him how, on the previous day when I [visited] the Salon d'Automne, I saw two lorry-loads of gendarmes arrive to effect the changing of the guard in the Picasso room. He laughed: 'Just like Buckingham Palace, isn't it?' he said delightedly."

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