Crimes of Paris_ A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection - Dorothy Hoobler [88]
Picasso was possessive of Fernande, preventing her even from going shopping alone, lest some man see her and carry her off. He forbade her to do housework, for he liked chaos where he worked (even later, when they had a housekeeper, the woman was instructed not to touch his studio), and Fernande was perfectly content to serve as his sexual companion. She showed up increasingly in his paintings, which now took on a rosy hue. It must have increased Fernande’s sense of security that he sometimes painted her with a husband and child.
Now with her on his arm, he circulated through the cabarets and bars of Montmartre, meeting others who aspired, as he did, to become artists of one kind or another. The most important of these to his career would be Guillaume Apollinaire, two years older than Picasso but very much a man of the world who had learned the invaluable skill of appearing to know far more than he did.
The story of how Apollinaire and Picasso met has many versions. Not even the year is certain, and the two principals themselves recalled it differently. Nevertheless, it was a signal moment in the history of art. Apollinaire would serve as Picasso’s herald and publicist; doing so would enhance Apollinaire’s reputation as well. Picasso was inarticulate on the subject of his art, and Apollinaire was articulate on everything. They were like two elements that, when combined, created an explosion.
Max Jacob offered one version of the first meeting between the two, at a bar on the rue Amsterdam:
Apollinaire was smoking a short-stemmed pipe and expiating on Petronius and Nero to some rather vulgar-looking people.… He was wearing a stained light-colored suit, and a tiny straw hat was perched atop his famous pear-shaped head. He had hazel eyes, terrible and gleaming, a bit of curly blond hair fell over his forehead, his mouth looked like a little pimento, he had strong limbs, a broad chest looped across by a platinum watch-chain, and a ruby on his finger. The poor boy was always being taken for a rich man because his mother — an adventuress, to put it politely — clothed him from head to toe [Apollinaire was living in a suburb of Paris with his mother].… Without interrupting his talk he stretched out a hand that was like a tiger’s paw over the marble-topped table. He stayed in his seat until he was finished. Then the three of us went out, and we began that life of three-cornered friendship which lasted almost until the war, never leaving one another whether for work, meals, or fun. 9
It was not long before Apollinaire visited Picasso’s studio, and he later recalled that it was “cluttered with canvases representing mystical harlequins and drawings on which people walked and which everyone was allowed to carry off.” 10 Viewing the Blue Period work, Apollinaire recognized the younger man’s genius and promptly took it upon himself to interpret and publicize it. Picasso’s paintings had previously been of interest to a limited circle, but now Apollinaire began to give life in print to the somber figures in Picasso’s canvases: “These children, who have no one to caress them, understand everything. These women, whom no one loves now, are remembering. They shrink back into the shadows as if into some ancient church. They disappear at daybreak, having attained consolation through silence. Old men stand about, wrapped in icy fog. These old men have the right to beg without humility.” 11 Descriptions such as these made others curious about Picasso’s art and led them to the Bateau-Lavoir to see it.
And because Picasso habitually worked late at night and slept mornings, the studio became a meeting place for many of the artists and writers who lived in the building or nearby. Picasso,