Picasso and Beloved Dogs



The Original by Velazquez

Bonnie and I went to see the regular collection at the Picasso Museum today, but knew ahead to book the 4:30 pm English tour. Getting there early, we skimmed the museum, looking at Picasso´s Blue Period, the Red Period and Las Meninas (his response to the 1695 painting of that belongs to Velazquez).

I have seen Valazquez´s painting, Las Maninas, in London and sat through a lecture on it, so the painting was familiar to me. The artist is on the far left. He is painting a King and Queen. You can see them in a mirror to the right of his face on the back wall. Their daughter has entered the room and she is surrounded by maids who are taking care of her, offering her a beverage, or in waiting to see if she or her parents need to be entertained. The artists painting is taking up a substantial amount of the left side of the painting.



Picasso´s Las Meninas after Velazquez

I was not familiar with Picasso´s work. The tour guide told us that many artists copy the work of others. What Picasso does is a copy while maintaining his originality. He adds only one completely new element -- light coming in from a window on the far right.

Picasso takes everyone in Velazquez´s painting and does cubist work with them, making caricatures and then places them back in similar painting in his own work, an intense few months of playing with this idea. This black and white was his final version. The museum houses all the earlier versions that are unsigned.



Bonnie and I sat on the benches in the museum and looked at the unsigned iterations of Picasso´s work We had the joy of finding the same figures, cartooned in many ways – not just in back and white, but in colour as well.

Picasso - Early version of Las Meninas

We spent a long time studying a colourful version where the foreground figures and the background are inseperable.

After much searching, we could see references to the same figures.  We began seeing a figure that always seemed to be stepping on the dog. The tour guide said that the face of this figure has less detail than the others because the light from the window is creating a shadow on the face of the person. We would never have guessed that.
 
We also noticed that the easiest figure to notice was the dog. Picasso said the only live model for this painting was his own dog, who was in the studio with him as he worked on these paintings.

 



While we are on the topic of beloved dogs, here is a story Bonnie shared with me after holding our place in line.

A great crosscultural unifying event took place while you were away. A dog came trotting up beside the line-up outside the Museum. The dog deposited a large poop right in the middle of this narrow street, already more narrow because of those waiting to buy tickets to the Picasso Museum. The owner smile, laughed, and coaxed his beloved dog to move along, after stepping over his dog´s deposit. 

  

I did not know others had witnessed this same event, until I heard a chorus of gasps as a pedestrian accidently kicked the larger of the turds about 1 meter down the lane. We all turned to each other, suprised at the collective knowledge and turned our heads back to the lane where a man coming the opposite direction accidently shot the turd back towards the direction from which it had come.





Moncada Street - line up for tickets here

Laugher erupted this time, instead of the horrored gasp at the first ¨kick of the soccer ball¨. Others in the line turned to see what the laughter was about, and were too drawn into the matching. I felt like I was watching a horrible prank, and thereby participating in it, allbeit as a bystander. 2 points for the West team, now the East team makes a shoot for the goal, but crushes part of the ball sending the crowd into hysterics. Some individuals in the crowd appeared to be first time viewers who, after viewing but a single penalty kick, were doubled over with laughter. Others appeared to be taking on bets.

 

The game seemed to be barely reaching half-time when I just couldn´t take it anymore. As I scanned the trash can to the right of me for a pooper-scooper, I saw the gentleman in front of me take a long look at the bottom of his shoes, and I knew he too had joined the viewing audience. I grabed a paper and said to the women in line behind me, ¨ara vinc¨ (I´ll be right back). In my best referee impersionation, I ran out onto the feild, raised a penalty flag (the newspaper from the trash), gave an apologetic look to the crowd, and deftly tossed the turd off the playing feild.

 

There was some expected booing. Other fans graciously wiped the tears from their eyes, and turned back to see how far the line had moved. We had had a collective experience that transcended our language and cultural differences. The Catalan humour expressed in the Caganer and the Caga Tio at times seems to me like a unique obsession with potty humour. Given the huge audience enjoying the soccer match on Carrer Monacada, perhaps there is a little Catalan in all of us.¨





If you are a dog owner, I beg you, ¨don´t forget to scoop!¨