Synthesis or questioning ?
The series shown at the museum reveals irony as well as humor, candor, naïveté, expectation, and desire. Behind Picasso's characters we can glean a variety of questions, a synthesis of the subjects he addresses. Picasso raises questions concerning the mysteries of existence and the meaning of life. He exhibits an extraordinary ease: his hand never falters. He skillfully combines an entire range of subtle nuances. Nothing is left to chance, everything is deliberate, laid down or thrown out with utter precision. All the drawings were executed with India ink and colored chalk on buff card. They picked up the themes that had already been suggested in the Avignon show. Some of them evoked specific periods from the painter's career, and the inclusion of numbers and dates is handled with irony. A sense of tension comes across, particularly in the pianist who appears to be striking the keys with a passion that overwhelms him.
The painter and his model, the musician, the harlequin, and the musketeer speak among themselves, engage in dialogues, and complement one another. Simple lines coexist with feverish pressure, but the ensemble harbors a powerful sense of harmony in which violence merges with gentleness. The highly refined drawings do not disappear behind the artist's bright, even excessive colors, which he uses deliberately for his harlequins–a theme to which he returned time and time again, like that of the circus and the street performers. In one single day he would produce up to six drawings, sometimes with a contained tone and at other times outrageous, as in his last erotic scenes, his last tribute to the carnal pleasures of life.
As each drawing was dated and numbered, we can follow the chronology of Picasso's output, his tributes to the characters and artists who marked his career (Van Gogh and Matisse, for example), his dark or tender humor, his choice of colors, or his power of concentration in the course of a single day. His nervous strokes and his swirling handwriting contribute to the teeming impression of the ensemble. We know that the artist had a penchant for series and variations. He who loved "the movement of painting, the dramatic effort of one vision or another, even if the effort is not pursued all the way," left a prolific output in his wake which bears witness to the intensity of his reflections. Picasso proclaims himself the author and the subject of his own story, the observer of his own gaze, of the dialogue between the artist and the man he has become. "What counts is not what the artist does, but what he is," Picasso liked to repeat.
The exhibition presented at the Arles Festival in 1971 met with great success. Other times, other manners. In the archives of the Arles museum we find the correspondence with the Parisian printer about the invitation card and the poster: being unable to travel to Paris to deliver it personally, Jean-Maurice Rouquette sent him Picasso's original drawing... by regular mail! Three rooms in the museum were especially set up to exhibit these variations that were so dear to the artist. For the occasion, Picasso was appointed Honorary Citizen of the City of Arles. The exhibition was extended when the Ministry of Cultural Affairs decided to provide free admission to all national museums that held the painter's works during a ten-day period, from October 21 to 31, 1971, in homage to the artist, as described in the letter from Jean Chatelain, Director of the national museums of France, to Jean-Maurice Rouquette, also held in the museum's archives and dated October 5, 1971 : "Aiming to pay solemn tribute to Pablo Picasso on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, the French government has decided, among other measures, to offer free access to the public from next October 21 to 31 to all those national museums where the master's works are on exhibit, be it on a permanent or on a temporary basis, namely the Musée du Louvre, the Musée National d’Art Moderne and the Musée National de Vallauris. I would like to inform you […] about this decision […] hoping that you may join [...] this homage.
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Summary