Just back from a few days in Barcelona where I visited the wonderful Museu Picasso. In particular, I enjoyed his Las Meninas Series. This series includes the subset of 9 paintings called The Pigeons which he started on Sept 6th 1957, before returning to Las Meninas on Sept 14th. Though very different in content, he always considered the 9 Pigeons paintings among the 58 Las Meninas Series; I think I know why.
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| The Pigeons, Picasso. Sept 6th, 1957 |
I asked Picasso what
he did on September 6th, 1957 ̶ your birthday.
“I was working on Las Meninas. I had put an almost human
face
on the Margarida Maria and there the ideas stalled.
On my balcony, pigeons emerged from fluffed up shapelessness.”
Out of the ocean into air,
into clanging space,
grabbing at the caul of light around you.
“I needed to resuscitate
a sense of the absurd;
the pigeons
twitched
with comic self-consciousness.”
Water’s membrane shut behind you,
things were sounding into being;
you were sounding into being.
“The round angled; the space faceted”, said Picasso.
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