In his essay Kontinent Picasso - Malen gegen die Zeit, Werner Spies describes his meeting with the artist in Mougins at the time of the Picasso exhibition at Avignon, between 1969 and 1970. With great trepidation, Spies writes, Picasso enquired about the reaction of visitors to the exhibition. Spies did not conceal from the trembling artist what was being said: Picasso was so old and frail that he could no longer paint with a steady hand. Spies expected this pitiless verdict to infuriate the painter, but Picasso reacted quite differently: “He did not argue, he did not react with words, but taking a pencil and a large sheet of white paper from the table in front of him, he unhesitatingly drew on it a perfect circle”.
By drawing a perfect circle, Picasso aligns himself with Giotto as an artist who replies to his critics not with words but simply with a pure line. Just as Giotto astonished an ingenuous papal envoy, incapable of deeper understanding, with a drawing reduced to a bare minimum, so Picasso with a perfect line showed his critics that even in old age he was aware of his own standing, affirming his status as the foremost artist of his age, or, to borrow the words of Vasari, “how much he exceeded in excellence the other artists of his time”. The examples shown here prove that Picasso really could draw the 'O' of Giotto perfectly (fig. 40). Moreover, even when very old he remained a master of the art of the pura linea (figs. 1-2). In many other works of his, Picasso revealed the importance he attributed to the symbolism of the circle, one of the best examples being the portrait of Françoise Gilot as Femme-Fleur (fig. 8).
Françoise's account of the origin of the painting 'La Femme-Fleur' is of the greatest importance for an understanding of the genesis of Picasso's art. Her interest focuses especially on the development of the composition. With great clarity she grasps the central compositional idea within the three circles (figs. 8, 10-11). The young Françoise did not however comprehend the symbolic significance: when Picasso explained to her the meaning of the circle in the right hand of the Femme-Fleur, she misunderstood his words, supposing that Picasso was flattering her with a compliment. Picasso had in fact drawn inspiration from Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, in which 'Beauté céleste' is shown as a nude 'Femme-Fleur', holding in her left hand the attribute of the flower (fig.12). As in Picasso's painting, the circle symbolises absolute beauty, its perfect form being accentuated by the pair of compasses. In the Iconologia, the 'Beauté céleste' appears as a close relative of the 'Perfection', also distinguished by the symbol of the circle and compasses (fig. 13). Just as Picasso describes the Femme-Fleur as “a woman who holds the whole world, heaven and earth” (fig. 8), so Ripa with his circle of the Zodiac exalts 'Perfection' as the beauty that rules earth and heaven (fig. 13).
One important source of inspiration for the portrait of Françoise Gilot as the Femme-Fleur is the series of illustrations by Henri Matisse for Ronsard's Florilège des amours (figs. 14, 19-20). In the context of our study it is important to point out that Matisse, inspired by the following lines of Ronsard, exalts the beauty of the Femme-Fleur through the symbol of the circle, just like Picasso: “Que de beautez, que de graces écloses/Dans le jardin de ce sein verdelet, […] Le ciel n'est dit parfait pour sa grandeur,/Luy et le sein le sont pour leur rondeur:/Car le parfait consiste en choses rondes'.
In his portraits of Françoise and of Marie-Thérèse (figs. 23-24), Picasso's theme is the praise of the women's beauty through the symbolism of the circle. Observing the famous portrait of 14 March 1932 showing Marie-Thérèse standing in front of a looking-glass, we count no fewer than nine circles! Fourteen years later, in the portrait of Françoise finished on 31 May 1946, Picasso concentrated on a single circle that dominates the composition. Françoise fixes the observer with a firm and resolute stare; the concentrated expression on her face is in keeping with the rigour of the composition, determined by the contrast between the rigorously vertical contours of the neck and the perfectly circular form of the face (fig. 23).
Picasso's fascination with Carmen dates from the time of his youth in Spain, yet strangely enough he avoided this typically Spanish subject for many decades. Not until 1949 did Picasso - Carmen. Sur le texte de Prosper Mérimée appear (with 38 illustrations). Later, however, the artist was once again so inspired by the fascinating gypsy that in 1957 he produced a series of drawings published in 1964 with the title Le Carmen des Carmen.
As in the case of the image of Françoise Gilot as Femme-Fleur, the realistic representations mutate progressively into the idealisation of the fascinating Carmen as a perfect circle (fig. 40). These illustrations, moreover, offer a further confirmation of Werner Spies's statement: it is clear that Picasso was capable of drawing freehand a perfect circle in a space of about 25 x 25 cm (the printed drawing is exactly the same size as the original). In the drawings where the circle has a small interruption, or even is badly formed, the 'error' is deliberately intended by the artist, who with this 'alteration' alludes to a disastrous development in the story (figs. 39, 45). Picasso labelled the series of images Femme d'Alger (figs. 62-63), which derives from a model by Delacroix, as an inheritance from Matisse, which he was to continue faithfully after Matisse's death: “Matisse m'a légué ses odalisques”. Because Picasso so emphasised the thematic legacy, it has hitherto been overlooked that the painter in his Femmes d'Alger cycle wanted also to take up the stylistic legacy. In 1935 the Limited Editions Club of New York published an edition of James Joyce's Ulysses illustrated by Matisse (figs. 64, 65). Picasso was fascinated by these illustrations, for two reasons closely connected to his own art: the alternation between 'realistic' and 'abstract' representation, and the repeated emphasising of the circle as a symbol of beauty. These circles represent far more than an hommage to Matisse. For a third time, after the portraits of Marie-Thérèse (fig. 24) and of Françoise (figs. 8, 23), who are glorified by the cercle d'amour, Picasso employed the symbolism of the circle to portray a recently conquered lover. The reclining figure in the 'Femmes d'Alger' completed on 24 January 1955 is undoubtedly a portrait of Jacqueline (fig. 62), with whom Picasso was deeply in love: a few days later he paid homage to her in a second 'abstract' version with the cercle d'amour (fig. 63).
On 5 December 2002 there appeared in the saleroom of Sotheby's in France a copy of Balzac's Chef d'œuvre inconnu, illustrated in 1931 by Picasso (fig. 66) and inscribed to Paul Éluard, Picasso had adorned this book with a profusion of new illustrations: four pastel drawings, nine full-page drawings and a numerical series of small pen-and-ink drawings interspersed with the text by Balzac. Although Picasso quite often gave his friends books improved with one or two drawings, this example is astonishingly rich in images, for which the only explanation is the extraordinary personality of the dedicatee, who was rightly called by Pierre Daix “le meilleur ami de Picasso du milieu des années 1930 à sa mort”. One of the most important passages in Balzac's novella refers to the impassioned search for absolute beauty on the part of Frenhofer. I recognise the same subject in the two main figures that adorn the frontispiece of the Gillette chapter (fig. 66). The rounded form of the crouching woman allows her to be inscribed within a perfect circle, an emblem of “beauté sans imperfection”.
It has been said of three famous painters that, like Giotto, they were capable of drawing freehand a circular figure which, when measured with a pair of compasses, was found to differ little from a perfect circle. The stories about Dürer and Beccafumi are now known by art historians to be inventions of the eighteenth century; Picasso might well have believed those stories, though the most reliable account of all is the one about the 'O' of Rembrandt. On the background wall of the 1665 self-portrait (fig. 90) we find the famous symbol of perfection, painted on a monumental scale and – be it noted – in red, as Vasari described it in his life of Giotto. Picasso could have known this painting through the engravings by Antoine de Marcenay de Ghuy (1755, fig. 91) and by Pieter Jan de Vlamynck (1830), or else through the copy on display in the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence. However, it is highly likely that the artist had seen Rembrandt's self-portrait in a book showing the works of the major Dutch painters. The relatively high number of works by Rembrandt known to Picasso cannot otherwise be explained. Surprisingly, he assimilated not only the famous masterpieces but also a whole series of minor works, such as the drawing of four orientals now in the British Museum, the portrait of Jan Cornelis Sylvius (fig. 99) or the series of Ecce Homo etchings.
Rembrandt's self-portrait dated 1665 (fig. 90) is today securely numbered among his autograph masterpieces. The authenticity of the great circle is guaranteed by the painting's overall good state of conservation. A deliberate allusion to the 'O' of Giotto seems very likely, for several reasons. After Karel van Mander's version of Vasari's Lives came out in 1604, they became so well known in the Netherlands, especially in artistic circles, that a proper competition arose among painters and calligraphers as to who could best draw a perfect circle freehand (figs. 92-93).
My theory that Picasso knew the 'O' of Rembrandt becomes more convincing when we recall how strong was Picasso's identification with Rembrandt, for example in the well known sheet in the Suite Vollard, in which on 31 January 1934 Picasso portrays Rembrandt for the first time (fig. 94). The desire for his image to assimilate that of Rembrandt (figs. 100-101, 103-104) pursues Picasso far into old age. His self-portrait made in 1970 (fig. 106), part of a larger composition, not only shows the implacable decline in his physique but also invites comparison with the image of Rembrandt he had made thirty-six years earlier (fig. 105). The proud Spaniard, who feared death above all things, did not however wish to accept the inevitable result of old age. When his young friend Angela Rosengart visited him on 17 May 1968, the encounter made him feel young again. With vivacious strokes he sketched a portrait of the young Rembrandt, inscribing it “Pour Angela, son ami portraitiste Picasso” (fig. 107). The word 'portraitiste' shows that Picasso was presenting himself as Rembrandt and that he saw his picture as a self-portrait of the artist oblivious of his age. Yet the comparison between Picasso and Rembrandt lies not only in the use of the same technique (figs. 101-102), but also in a singular identification on Picasso's part with the personages of the great Dutch master (figs. 108-110, 113-114).
On 20 April 1913 the Mercure de France issued Apollinaire's Alcools, in which the poet republished the poems he had written in the previous decade. For the frontispiece Picasso made a rigorously Cubist drawing, entitled Guillaume Apollinaire par Pablo Picasso (figs. 116, 118).
The formal characteristics of this portrait of Apollinaire, such as the circles, semicircles, lines and black and white blocks are elements typical of Picasso's Cubist works in the period 1912-1913. The same forms can be found for instance in the painting Table with bottle of 1912 (fig. 121). As in the portrait of Apollinaire, and in his preparatory drawings, some of the forms echo naturalistic models. However, the small white circle on a black ground in the Apollinaire portrait can in no way be interpreted as a realistic form (fig. 116). It is not, as might at first sight appear, the representation of an eye, which Picasso always shows as almond-shaped, whether in the preparatory drawing or in the frontispiece itself (figs. 116, 118). So every careful observer must ponder the significance of this white circle on which, after a prolonged observation of the image, the gaze tends to focus, and which emerges ever more clearly as the 'mental centre' of the composition. This effect is all the more apparent in the presence of the original frontispiece, where the white circle stands out most brilliantly.
Apollinaire, speaking about his portrait by Picasso to the journalist Robert Rey, said: “Vous voyez ce petit rond? C'est tout mon âme” (fig.116). Yet students of Picasso's work have paid little attention to this statement recorded by Rey. Such a statement, linked as it is to Greek philosophy, has seemed inconsistent, in view of Picasso's well known rejection of a thoroughgoing symbolic interpretation of his art. But for our study of the symbolism of the circle, it is certainly stimulating to ventilate the question anew.
'Le Larron', one of the poems in Alcools, tells of a stranger who lands on a desert island inhabited by followers of a Gnostic sect. The traveller, Larron, is at once enchanted by the magnificent fruits that grow in abundance on the island. He cannot resist the temptation to steal some of them, and his action is interpreted by the inhabitants as sacrilege, because the marvellous fruits are perfectly spherical and thus resemble souls, “des fruits tout ronds comme des âmes”. With these words the poet alludes to Neoplatonic writings, for example to certain passages in the Enneads of Plotinus: “une telle âme est […] comme un cercle”, “elle est comme le centre dans un cercle'. Knowing this poetic context, in which Apollinaire lightly transmitted his symbolic ideas, we may more readily believe that the artist too, averse as he generally was to deep symbolism, was open to such thoughts (fig. 116).
Peter Read, in his book on the relationship between Picasso and Apollinaire, affirms that “their friendship was a kind of marriage”. In April 1916 Apollinaire sent from the Front, where he was serving as an artillery officer, to Picasso in Paris, a ring made out of the remains of an exploded shell, in token of their deep friendship. Lastly, it occurs to me that this intimate connection had already been forged when Picasso represented the poet's soul transfigured by the light of ancient Greek philosophy (fig. 116).