A Brush with the Ghost of Picasso in Barcelona

I went to Barcelona in search of the ghost of Picasso. I know what you’re thinking: One goes to Barcelona in search of Gaudi. For Picasso, one goes to Paris.

But no--I wanted to find Picasso at the beginning of his career, and that meant Barcelona.

Picasso was a Spaniard, after all, no matter how much of his life he lived in France. There was always the sense of exile, the longing to speak Spanish instead of French, to consort with Catalans instead of Frenchmen.

He was born in the south of Spain, in Malaga, but moved to Barcelona in 1895 at age 13 when his father, also a painter, was appointed to teach at the School of Fine Arts. Picasso lived in Barcelona on and off (but mostly on) for nine years and returned many times after that. It was here that he began his transformation from classically trained artist to creative genius. By the time he left to conquer Paris, he had, in his own mind, learned everything he needed to know.

I became fascinated with Picasso rather late in life. A sorry statement for a former art history major, but there it is. Twenty years ago I memorized facts and slides of his works to pass tests. Then I came across “Life With Picasso” and, quite unexpectedly, began this journey.

The book, published in 1973, recounts Francoise Gilot’s story of her nine tumultuous years with Picasso and his relationships with Gertrude Stein and such painters as Matisse (“In the end, there is only Matisse,” said Picasso) and Braque (whom he derided as “Madame Picasso”).

From that book I went on to others, more biographies, retrospectives of his work. After awhile, reading wasn’t enough; I needed a pilgrimage. I wanted to do it all: the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where so many of his masterpieces are concentrated; Madrid, to see Guernica; Paris, to the Picasso Museum; to Vallauris in the South of France, where his goat sculpture gift to the village stands in the town square.

But as my budget limited me to one destination, I decided to search for Picasso in Barcelona. Walk where he walked, eat where he ate and try to imagine the transformation that took root in Barcelona and flowered throughout the art world.

When Picasso arrived in Barcelona, the city was at its height as a center for revolutionaries and artists. The opera house had been bombed by anarchists just two years earlier and there was a strong separatist movement among Catalans. Antonio Gaudi was out-rococoing rococo with his architectural marvels. It was a city with cultural and artistic freedom and intensity. Picasso savored it all.

My first morning in Barcelona, I headed for the Picasso Museum on Montcada, walking expectantly through the labyrinth of streets in the Gothic Quarter as if I were heading for Mecca. Housed in the Palau Aguilar, a 15th-Century mansion on a street just wide enough for a compact car, the museum is surrounded by souvenir shops filled with Picasso/Dali/Miro (the big three hometown-boys-made-good in Catalonia) post cards, T-shirts and posters (prices are cheaper inside at the museum gift shop).

With its graceful Gothic-Renaissance courtyard and only a small sign to identify it, the museum seemed at first an incongruous place to house the works of the modern master. The rooms have been turned into sleek-walled galleries, but as you walk from one to the next, the old stone walls are visible in the hallways. It is a serene setting, the perfect complement to Picasso’s early traditional work, and yet, in turn, the perfect counterpoint to his later work.

Most of the art was donated by Picasso himself or by Jaime Sabartes, a Catalan who became his lifelong major-domo. Picasso painted many portraits of Sabartes and several are on display here, including the famous 1939 oil of Sabartes as Spanish grandee (one of Picasso’s typical not-so-subtle put-downs of his friend as little more than a courtier).

The earliest works of Picasso’s include pencil sketches he did as a child. Picasso must have had an air of destiny about him for these to have survived--little studies of doves done upside down over a sketch of a bullfight.

When he was 15 he painted his first significant work, “First Communion,” a huge, very traditional painting with no hint of the wildness to come. It is almost impossible to imagine that such a fine work could come from the brush of a 15-year-old.

Many of the paintings and drawings were inspired by the people he met in Barcelona--the circus people, the people of the streets. Picasso captured the sensuality of the brothels, the dandyism in the cafes, the lost feelings of the city’s outsiders.

“The Madman” is a watercolor from 1904 that catches the subject’s wild look with a few unerring strokes. “Woman With a Mantilla,” a 1917 portrait of his first wife Olga, is done in the pointillist style using precise dabs of paint in complex arrangements of color. The result cannot be reproduced on the page; the original holds viewers spellbound in front of it.

An entire gallery is devoted to “Las Meninas,” the almost manic series of paintings that Picasso did in 1957. They were inspired by Velasquez’ “Las Meninas,” which captured the maids of the 17th-Century Spanish court.

Still aflutter from the museum, I made my way a few blocks away to Carrer d’Avinyo. A narrow passageway lined with apartments, shops and restaurants, all impossibly quaint, Avinyo is notable for the shop that sells the best espadrilles in the city. But at the turn of the century, it was the heart of the brothel district and the teen-age Picasso was one of its frequent customers. It was here that Picasso found the inspiration for “Demoiselles of Avignon,” the seminal painting of the Cubist movement. Picasso painted it in 1907 after he moved to Paris, but sketches at the museum confirm that he was already very involved in the work during the days he frequented Avinyo.

I walked the cobblestones, imagining Picasso coming out of a doorway, dressed in a staid dark suit of the early 1900s. He was described by lover Fernande Olivier as “small, dark, thick-set, restless, disquieting, with dark eyes, piercing, strange, almost staring . . . poorly dressed, badly groomed . . . a thick lock of hair, black and shining, slashed across his intelligent and obstinate forehead. Half bohemian, half workman. . . .” It was how I tried to picture him on Avinyo.

Afterward, I walked to Els Quatre Gats (3 Montsio) and it was here that I felt the ghost of Picasso most strongly, more than in his museum. This was Picasso’s favorite hangout. The bistro was opened in 1897 and quickly became the meeting place for Barcelona’s artists. Picasso was part of the younger crowd who were struggling to be recognized by the bistro’s older, established painters.

He became good friends with the owner, Pere Romeu, designing a birth announcement for his child as well as the menu cover for the restaurant. Still in use today, the menu is very like a Toulouse-Lautrec drawing of the fin de siecle bourgeoisie at leisure. Els Quatre Gats was the scene of poetry readings, piano concerts and art exhibitions. Here, in 1900, Picasso had his first show--with mixed reviews.

The bistro has been renovated several times. The pointed archways that Picasso depicted on the menu cover remain. So do the marble tables. I sat at one that looks just like one in his 1899 pastel sketch, “The Divan.” In the large back dining room, a pianist played a baby grand at dinner, an extravagant candelabra lighting her music. On the walls were reproductions of Picasso sketches from his Barcelona and early Paris days. I chose to sit “next to” his sister Lola, wondering if I was the only one in the room who knew who she was.

I think of this as my dinner with Pablo. Much of my time was spent conjuring up an image of him swaggering (I feel sure he did) through the doorway with friends and being warmly welcomed by Romeu and his wife. Picasso drew inspiration from Els Quatre Gats customers. I saw a woman in the room who was sitting in an attitude that Picasso had captured long ago: elbow on table, chin on hand. I found myself mimicking the position, as if it were a secret handshake.

The food at Els Quatre Gats was not nearly as inspiring as the ghosts: a mix of Spanish and Catalan dishes, the plainest gazpacho (an ungarnished puree), broiled pork chops, grilled salmon, bland pudding. The reason to come is the history. Reason enough.

I capped off my Picasso pilgrimage with an after-dinner walk on the Ramblas. It seems like, on warm nights, all of Barcelona rambles here. So did Picasso. Down the center of the street, past trees and flower stalls, I imagined him meandering--hands stuffed in his pockets, then quickly pulled out to make a gesture. As I passed by street entertainers, I remembered the museum sketch of a street violinist. Was he here, once, right at this spot?

Another day, the Picasso trail led me to Sitges, a beach resort 30 minutes by train south of the city. Santiago Rusinol, the leading Catalan painter at the beginning of Picasso’s career, lived in a mansion overlooking the sea in the middle of town, and it was his magnetism that lured younger painters such as Picasso here.

Rusinol’s home, on Calle Fonallar, has become Museu Cau Ferrat. The walls of the two-story mansion are crammed with paintings of Catalan artists, four or five high in most places. It takes a careful perusal to find the few Picasso works: pencil sketches and a small oil depicting a bullfight.

Down the street is a branch of Els Quatre Gats (13 Calle San Pablo), and Picasso hung out here, too. It has been thoroughly remodeled but the link to Picasso remains in the decorations: On the wall are copies of Picasso’s birth announcement for Romeu and articles about Picasso in the Catalan art magazine of his day.

Another day, I made my way up to Cadaques, a small fishing village on the Costa Brava near the French border. Cadaques is famous as Salvador Dali’s home (actually a kilometer away in Port Lligat), not for any association with Picasso. But as I walked along the waterfront street that curves along the water, I noticed a tile plate set into the wall of a building. It said, in Catalan, “In 1910, Pablo Picasso lived here.”

I went inside (could I resist?). It is now another in the chain of Picasso/Dali/Miro souvenir shops. The owner seemed insulted when I asked if Picasso had indeed lived upstairs at one time. “He lived right here in these rooms,” he said. These rooms were now one big space of whitewashed, brick walls.

I looked out the front window to the sea. Picasso must have loved it here. He spent the summer with his Olivier and painter Andre Derain. It is the most painterly of villages: dappled water, brightly colored fishing boats, strong shadows, white buildings hugging a series of coves. But Picasso did not really capture Cadaques with his brush (a few minor pieces). Mesmerized by Cubism, he painted “Woman With a Mandolin” and “Nude Woman”--possibly standing at his easel in the exact spot where I stood, perusing the post-card rack filled with Guernicas.

After Picasso moved to Paris in 1904, he continued to return to Catalonia frequently. His family lived here; Lola married a doctor who became head of the psychiatric hospital. He never felt like a Frenchman. His first dealer in Paris was a Catalan. He met Gilot at a Parisian restaurant, Le Catalan, where he went for Catalan food and conversation. Els Quatre Gats was too far away. Picasso needed his ghosts too.

GUIDEBOOK

Picasso’s Barcelona

Picasso Museum, 15-19 Montcada, Barcelona. Open daily except Monday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (gift shop closed between 2 and 4 p.m.). Admission $4.

Els Quatre Gats, 3 Montsio, Barcelona. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Dinner for two, without wine: $35-$50.

Els Quatre Gats, 13 Calle San Pablo, Sitges. Open daily for lunch and dinner (closed Wednesdays, October through April). Lunch for two, without wine: $30-$40.

Museum Cap Ferrat, Calle Fonollar, Sitges. Open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 to 6 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission $2.