P I C A S S O

So this is what Paris has looked like for the past week at least.  And alternating with the fog and mist has been rain, which looks roughly the same.  So much rain, in fact, that the Seine has reached flood levels.  Both the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay have closed their doors for tomorrow at least, to make emergency evacuations of their precious inventories.  The Seine is expected to rise more over the next few days; there are no reports of it abating, since the rain continues.

So we went off to the Picasso Museum.  As faithful readers (both of you) know, I really hated the exhibition mounted for the re-opening of the museum.  That exhibition and the controversial directrice are now gone.  Apparently, we learned today, the galleries will not host a permanent collection, but will rotate the thousands of Picasso works in different shows with different themes.  So we'll eventually - like in a thousand years -- see all of them at least once.

This exhibition was sculpture, following the success of the recent MOMA show in New York.  And it was grand.

This is a set of teacups with absinthe spoons on each.

These are figures of men, intended to replicate line drawings. 

 The round disk is the face, the bowed element in the front are the arms and legs. 

A face, of course. 

 These are half of the drawings that ere made as studies for a sculpture of a woman's head.  They begin very representational, and gradually morph into what we would expect of Picasso. 

 A little girl jumping rope. 

It took me a moment to realize that the head of this monkey is made of a toy car.

The first is a painting of a vase and a cow's head.  The second two are copies in three dimensions. 

Picasso used paper to fold, cut and bend into shapes that were later copied in sheet metal.

 Some were made to revolve, like the one below.  (When I figure out how to post a video, you'll see it move!) 

 These two identical figures show the effect of color.

 These are hilarious, made with found objects and sand mixed in the paint. Another series claimed that the paint was mixed with couscous. 

This one is called the bather.   Can you see her in her bikini?

 This is entitled "Two Pofiles."

Anne pointed out that the benches, chairs and light fixtures had been commissioned from Giocometti, themselves works of art.

 You can see that it is firmly secured!

Tom and Anne made use of one of them before we left for a little visit to the Place des Vosges.