“a profound statue made out of nothing, like poetry and glory” (Apollinaire, perhaps referring to Picasso)

Tuesday, 9^th June

A slow start today, leisurely stroll to the Picasso Museum. Happily, we pre-booked the tickets and only had to wait 25 minutes, while the ones who hadn’t pre-booked waited much longer. We wanted to visit this museum the first time we came to Paris in 2009, but it was being renovated, so came again in 2013, and the renovations were still underway. Fortunately the 5 year 30M Euro renovation was completed in October 2014 and the magnificently restored Hotel de Sale, housing the Picasso Museum was reopened in late 2014.

Was it worth waiting seven years for? Yes. The building is beautiful, light, elegant and stylish.

There were more than 500 works of art by Picasso on display, organised, more or less, chronologically. Most of the art works were from his own personal collection, pieces he had not sold. Many were donated in place of death taxes, by his heirs, so perhaps, the best of the best were here to see.

We spent about three hours looking at the art over five floors, and then had coffee on the lovely terrace overlooking the courtyard. Afterwards we strolled the beautiful shops and galleries of Le Marais and revisiting the Master Parfumier, Christian Louis, whom we first encountered on 2009.

We have been asking each other in each place we have been, “Is this your spiritual home”. I thought it might be in Ireland, and while I felt very comfortable and relaxed there, I didn’t think it was where I belonged. I had, in Scotland had a greater connection, strangely, but Le Marais is where I really love. So, it’s not a “genetic connection”, it must be spiritual.

But back to the Picasso show. Apparently, there are over 3,000 items from which to choose. This exhibition did not include his work (& linocuts) from his Bacchanalia period in the 50s, the masterpieces of musicians and dancers or too many of his early tight cubist works but otherwise it was a gobsmacking show. It is unbelievable to think he made over 30,000 works in his lifetime most of which are collectable. He was unbelievably prolific and his imagination was totally unfettered. Furthermore, he was a great technician and able to realise his ideas perfectly and with a minimum of fuss.

Initially, in the first few rooms, I was surprised by how much I came to dislike him and thought his paintings were ugly. But as we went from room to room with each room containing another surprise, another exploration and development in the use of colour and or style in painting, ceramics or sculpture – one could not come away without acknowledging this is the work of a genius (unless Picasso had a great army of unrecognised assistants).

My favourites were the 2 paintings of “woman in red armchair” which were full of foreboding & dark feeling and the incredibly delicate smallish drawings and paintings from his minotaur & bull-fighting series.

Finally, there were so many paintings which have seen countless times in magazines and books about art and Picasso that it was almost a “spiritual” experience to see the real object and realise they are better than can be imagined.

In the evening we met Julie and John, (Dick's sister and brother-in-law) for a lovely dinner at "Les Fous de L'Ile, a restaurant on an island in the Seine.They had just arrived in Paris after a couple of weeks in the Greek Islands, and we shared stories of our travels.