Springtime for Pablo

The greatest living artist, Pablo Picasso, 73, was up to his ink-black eyes in glory. Last week a huge retrospective show of his paintings at the Louvre drew more than 5,000 visitors in a single day; his prints and drawings went on view at Paris' National Library, and both exhibitions got adoring reviews. "Picasso," said the weekly Arts, "has played an incalculably important role in the history of painting." Added Figaro: "No artist ever dared go as far as Picasso."

Staring & Transforming. The old man started going farther, faster, half a century ago. Two of his best works at the Louvre exhibition were done in 1906, soon after he hit Paris. One was a portrait of Gertrude Stein (borrowed from Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum) that made her look solid as a hillside, a Mother Earth with brains. The other, a self-portrait from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, presented the youthful Picasso as a stocky, strong boy staring intently at nothing in particular. Both pictures demonstrated his genius for transforming subject matter into shapes and colors of his own invention which are still absolutely convincing.

Picasso soon turned his gift for direct attack from subject matter to art itself; at least half his creations have been reworkings not of nature but of art in general. "I imitate everything but myself," he would explain. The savage speed of his experiments often led him in circles; sometimes he sacrificed progress to change. History may view him as a childish titan who almost absentmindedly laid vast granite foundations for a thousand castles of air.

Settling & Overflowing. But in old age Picasso is developing a new and airier touch. As charming as anything in the Louvre's show were 14 recent variations on The Women of Algiers, a famous harem picture by Delacroix. The variations, painted in a brief, 64-day period last winter, flung open the shutters of Delacroix's exotic little dream world. Some of the "variations" verged on parodies, both of Delacroix and of Matisse. (Said Picasso to a friend after Matisse died: "I will try to continue his work.") More intriguing to curiosity seekers was another recent work. Picasso's gay-as-a-flag red, white and blue portrait of his new mistress : Madame Z.

In the flesh, Madame Z. is Jacqueline Roque, a dark-haired, dark-eyed Antibes' woman, fortyish. self-effacing, maternal, and of course lovely to look at--Picasso has no fear of ugliness in art, but he does not appreciate it in women. For Jacqueline Roque's sake, and because he does hate fuss, Picasso passed up last week's festivities in Paris. He was busy settling into an ornate villa, La Californie, overlooking Cannes and the blue Mediterranean.

He still sleeps at his old house in Vallauris. At La Californie, Picasso has ripped out the connecting doors of the ground floor to make one huge studio. Pottery, sculptures, driftwood, rocks, paints, canvases, primitive idols, bottles and plain junk heaped here and there like the accidental deposit of a flood make the high, cool rooms seem homey to Picasso, who has much of Proteus about him. The only furniture thus far installed consists of some work tables, a few straight chairs and a rocking chair in which he reads his morning paper.

Picasso's ventures into the shocking-pink area of the political spectrum appear to have ended with his portrait sketch of Stalin, made to commemorate the dicta tor's death in 1953. Party officials pronounced the sketch a poor likeness, and Picasso reportedly replied to their strictures with a tart "Tant pis [Too bad]."

In his new surroundings, Picasso is painting as always, and Jacqueline Roque is cleaning his brushes. Thick in the middle and bald on top, he seems still strong as an oaken tub and overflowing with the wine of life.

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