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Lot Essay
In 1970, the venerable and ancient Palais des Papes in Avignon was filled with the colourful bustle of a strange coterie of characters. These toreadors, lovers, musketeers and artists had all been captured by Pablo Picasso in paintings executed the previous year, and it was with this formidable exhibition of paintings that he asserted his continued primacy within the artworld, and likewise revealed the daunting creative energy with which he was still blessed. Amongst these paintings was Homme à la pipe assis et amour, painted in 1969, a whimsical vision of a man sitting, enjoying his pipe, staring out at the viewer with a Cupid hovering over his shoulder.
This strange and incongruous musketeer, a stock character of Rembrandt and Hals and Velazquez and Molière and Dumas, appears out of place in a painting as electrically modern as Homme à la pipe assis et amour, with its vibrant colours and contemporary appearance. And yet in turning to this subject, Picasso found himself able to doff his hat in the direction of his greatest predecessors and inspirations. Just as he revisited paintings like Las Meninas, so too here he has tapped into a ye olde sense of romance and valour that reveals his continued interest in the artists of yore. This interest was perhaps sharpened by Picasso's repeated assertion that he was 'haunted' by the character of Rembrandt, who was for the Spaniard a ghostly presence, a target and an idol. But while paying his respects, Picasso is also showcasing his own status amongst the Old Masters, and indeed as the man who injected so much new life and relevance into the domain of painting that they had formerly inhabited. In a sense, Picasso has taken a subject more fitting for an Old Master in order to emphasise his own contribution to the revolution that had taken place in art through his pioneering experiments over the previous seven decades.
During the Post-War years, a huge new range of whimsical characters such as this musketeer came to people Picasso's pictures, ranging in theme and inspiration from mythology to the corrida to his own universe. Picasso's paintings were a form of autobiography, emanations from his own heart and psyche, despite not necessarily representing his life directly. Picasso had developed his own visual universe, a two-dimensional realm of infinite possibilities that often functioned as an arena for bouts of wish-fulfilment or self-scrutiny. Although the man in Homme à la pipe assis et amour appears to be a figment of the imagination in his ruff and breeches, he can also be seen as a younger personification of Picasso himself. In this sense, the viewer is forced to wonder what the narrative context of the scene might have been. Is the musketeer about to embark on some romantic adventure? Has he been the target of Cupid's arrows, or are they to be fired at some maiden on his behalf? Is the Cupid visible, are they cohorts, or is this some strange unseen protective familiar?
Looking at this romantic content in the light of some of Picasso's more overtly sexual pictures of the same period, it is clear that the element of wish-fulfilment was often present, mingled with a great deal of regret. For Picasso, ever since an operation some years earlier, had been unable to indulge in what had formerly been one of his greatest pleasures, sex. And yet as a constant companion he had his young wife Jacqueline, whom he had met when he was in his 70s, she in her twenties, a tantalising presence reminding him constantly of the various activities that he had previously enjoyed so much. At the same time, the romantic appearance of Homme à la pipe assis et amour hints at the romance that existed in the intimate domestic existence of Picasso and his wife, who remained central to his life for the two final decades of his life.
This Romantic vision of a gallant man from a long-distant era is captured in brushstrokes that reveal Picasso's ever-renewed interest in the qualities and potential of paint itself. There is a rich and even brutal gestural quality to the strokes that appears almost as a challenge to the Action Painters of the previous decades. This is an artwork that reveals the aging master still abreast of developments in art and willing to take up their gauntlet thrown down by Art Brut, by de Kooning or by Dubuffet.
Picasso himself is in fact indulging in his own form of extreme Expressionism, confronting his increasing age and an impending sense of his own death by attacking the canvas with an energy that would make any swashbuckling musketeer proud and even envious. Despite being well into his 80s, in Homme à la pipe assis et amour Picasso has left the traces of considerable physical exertion visible for all to see, not least himself. This is an act that at once combines his anxieties and his own stubborn refusal to bow to age or to mortality. But most important in a vision as whimsical as Homme à la pipe assis et amour is the sense of fun-- this painting is less the result of a fear of death than of a sheer lust for life. The brushwork sings of a vibrant enthusiasm. This picture explodes before our eyes like a colourful and vigorous firework. It is packed with life and movement, despite the apparently sedentary position of its main subject. Picasso is plugged into a direct current of life, and it is for this reason that he has adopted a style that, in its very deliberate 'stylelessness', tells of a profound honesty. This freshness of vision demonstrates to what extent Picasso succeeded in his quest for a child-like vision: 'When I was a child I could draw like Raphael, but it took me a lifetime to draw like a child' (Picasso, quoted by H. Read in The Times, 26 October 1956).
This strange and incongruous musketeer, a stock character of Rembrandt and Hals and Velazquez and Molière and Dumas, appears out of place in a painting as electrically modern as Homme à la pipe assis et amour, with its vibrant colours and contemporary appearance. And yet in turning to this subject, Picasso found himself able to doff his hat in the direction of his greatest predecessors and inspirations. Just as he revisited paintings like Las Meninas, so too here he has tapped into a ye olde sense of romance and valour that reveals his continued interest in the artists of yore. This interest was perhaps sharpened by Picasso's repeated assertion that he was 'haunted' by the character of Rembrandt, who was for the Spaniard a ghostly presence, a target and an idol. But while paying his respects, Picasso is also showcasing his own status amongst the Old Masters, and indeed as the man who injected so much new life and relevance into the domain of painting that they had formerly inhabited. In a sense, Picasso has taken a subject more fitting for an Old Master in order to emphasise his own contribution to the revolution that had taken place in art through his pioneering experiments over the previous seven decades.
During the Post-War years, a huge new range of whimsical characters such as this musketeer came to people Picasso's pictures, ranging in theme and inspiration from mythology to the corrida to his own universe. Picasso's paintings were a form of autobiography, emanations from his own heart and psyche, despite not necessarily representing his life directly. Picasso had developed his own visual universe, a two-dimensional realm of infinite possibilities that often functioned as an arena for bouts of wish-fulfilment or self-scrutiny. Although the man in Homme à la pipe assis et amour appears to be a figment of the imagination in his ruff and breeches, he can also be seen as a younger personification of Picasso himself. In this sense, the viewer is forced to wonder what the narrative context of the scene might have been. Is the musketeer about to embark on some romantic adventure? Has he been the target of Cupid's arrows, or are they to be fired at some maiden on his behalf? Is the Cupid visible, are they cohorts, or is this some strange unseen protective familiar?
Looking at this romantic content in the light of some of Picasso's more overtly sexual pictures of the same period, it is clear that the element of wish-fulfilment was often present, mingled with a great deal of regret. For Picasso, ever since an operation some years earlier, had been unable to indulge in what had formerly been one of his greatest pleasures, sex. And yet as a constant companion he had his young wife Jacqueline, whom he had met when he was in his 70s, she in her twenties, a tantalising presence reminding him constantly of the various activities that he had previously enjoyed so much. At the same time, the romantic appearance of Homme à la pipe assis et amour hints at the romance that existed in the intimate domestic existence of Picasso and his wife, who remained central to his life for the two final decades of his life.
This Romantic vision of a gallant man from a long-distant era is captured in brushstrokes that reveal Picasso's ever-renewed interest in the qualities and potential of paint itself. There is a rich and even brutal gestural quality to the strokes that appears almost as a challenge to the Action Painters of the previous decades. This is an artwork that reveals the aging master still abreast of developments in art and willing to take up their gauntlet thrown down by Art Brut, by de Kooning or by Dubuffet.
Picasso himself is in fact indulging in his own form of extreme Expressionism, confronting his increasing age and an impending sense of his own death by attacking the canvas with an energy that would make any swashbuckling musketeer proud and even envious. Despite being well into his 80s, in Homme à la pipe assis et amour Picasso has left the traces of considerable physical exertion visible for all to see, not least himself. This is an act that at once combines his anxieties and his own stubborn refusal to bow to age or to mortality. But most important in a vision as whimsical as Homme à la pipe assis et amour is the sense of fun-- this painting is less the result of a fear of death than of a sheer lust for life. The brushwork sings of a vibrant enthusiasm. This picture explodes before our eyes like a colourful and vigorous firework. It is packed with life and movement, despite the apparently sedentary position of its main subject. Picasso is plugged into a direct current of life, and it is for this reason that he has adopted a style that, in its very deliberate 'stylelessness', tells of a profound honesty. This freshness of vision demonstrates to what extent Picasso succeeded in his quest for a child-like vision: 'When I was a child I could draw like Raphael, but it took me a lifetime to draw like a child' (Picasso, quoted by H. Read in The Times, 26 October 1956).