had inspired such a terrible sacrifice? For even then, the boy Picasso’s talent was indisputable. As a child he’d begun drawing even before he could speak. Everyone knew that he was destined for greatness—why, his father had quit painting and handed over his own box of paints and brushes to Pablo, in a gesture that carried as much burden of guilt as it did a vote of confidence.
Would God really expect the boy genius to give up such a gift if his sister survived, just to make good on his rash bargain? In a panic, Pablo had tried to ignore another voice that whispered demonically in his ear, “Ask God to keep your artistic destiny alive, and take your saintly sister’s life as a sacrifice…”
For days Picasso agonized as only a young boy could, imagining that it was
his
will, and not God’s, which must make this decision. He would never wish his sister dead—yet he could not help praying to be released from his promise to stop painting if she survived.
Concepción died soon after.
And that was how Pablo came to believe that no one could create without destroying something dear. Birth begat death, and in Spain the ghosts of the dead never completely went away. You learned to live with them instead of resisting them, and you avoided sentimentality, or else the servants of Death would think you were ready for him much earlier than you had to be.
Now, with civil war galloping toward Spain as inexorably as a charging bull, there was no point in going along with the trend throughout Europe of pretending that there would never be another world-wide war. Life and death were like the ebb and flow of the tide. In Barcelona, people understood this. On Sundays a young man’s day began in church, but it might finish up with an afternoon visit to a brothel, where love was a mere transaction, and life a mocking challenge to outwit all rivals and enemies.
Create while you can, before the forces of death catch up with you…
Pablo Picasso picked up his brush.
Céline in New York, Christmas Eve 2013
M Y MOTHER WAITED UNTIL I was thirty to tell me about Grandmother Ondine and Picasso. It was Christmas Eve, and I’d just flown in from Los Angeles to spend the holiday with her at her house in Westchester—one of those venerable old colonials with large, elegant windows, bordered by carefully pruned shrubbery and situated on a spacious, neat lawn dotted with ancient oak and maple trees.
It was snowing lightly when my taxi dropped me at the driveway. Mom must have been watching from a window, because the front door opened before I even got near it, and she came down the walkway without a coat over her cherry-red wool dress. She always dressed impeccably in finely made suits or dresses, pretty silk scarves and subtle, discreet jewelry; and her skin appeared youthfully radiant.
I instantly admired how good she looked and how she single-handedly maintained a modest, genuine spirit of
joie de vivre
. Yet the sight of her small figure and bright face coming down the walkway also evoked a protective instinct I’ve often had for her, almost as if she were the child and I her guardian. For, although Mom possessed French good taste, she wasn’t haughty about it; she had a shy, meek demeanor, due to some mysterious trauma from her childhood which she once alluded to but refused to fully explain, saying only, “Grandmother Ondine and I went through some bad times before I got married. But one must take the bitter with the better.” I could never get her to say anything more.
Today though, Mom was especially happy and animated. “Céline, you made it! How lovely you look with your California suntan!” she exclaimed approvingly, kissing me on first one cheek, then the other. I stooped to meet her halfway, because I was so much taller. Her eyes were dark while mine were blue; in fact all I inherited from her was her auburn-colored hair—I wore mine in a waist-length braid, while hers was cut chic and short. I liked the familiar
Would God really expect the boy genius to give up such a gift if his sister survived, just to make good on his rash bargain? In a panic, Pablo had tried to ignore another voice that whispered demonically in his ear, “Ask God to keep your artistic destiny alive, and take your saintly sister’s life as a sacrifice…”
For days Picasso agonized as only a young boy could, imagining that it was
his
will, and not God’s, which must make this decision. He would never wish his sister dead—yet he could not help praying to be released from his promise to stop painting if she survived.
Concepción died soon after.
And that was how Pablo came to believe that no one could create without destroying something dear. Birth begat death, and in Spain the ghosts of the dead never completely went away. You learned to live with them instead of resisting them, and you avoided sentimentality, or else the servants of Death would think you were ready for him much earlier than you had to be.
Now, with civil war galloping toward Spain as inexorably as a charging bull, there was no point in going along with the trend throughout Europe of pretending that there would never be another world-wide war. Life and death were like the ebb and flow of the tide. In Barcelona, people understood this. On Sundays a young man’s day began in church, but it might finish up with an afternoon visit to a brothel, where love was a mere transaction, and life a mocking challenge to outwit all rivals and enemies.
Create while you can, before the forces of death catch up with you…
Pablo Picasso picked up his brush.
Céline in New York, Christmas Eve 2013
M Y MOTHER WAITED UNTIL I was thirty to tell me about Grandmother Ondine and Picasso. It was Christmas Eve, and I’d just flown in from Los Angeles to spend the holiday with her at her house in Westchester—one of those venerable old colonials with large, elegant windows, bordered by carefully pruned shrubbery and situated on a spacious, neat lawn dotted with ancient oak and maple trees.
It was snowing lightly when my taxi dropped me at the driveway. Mom must have been watching from a window, because the front door opened before I even got near it, and she came down the walkway without a coat over her cherry-red wool dress. She always dressed impeccably in finely made suits or dresses, pretty silk scarves and subtle, discreet jewelry; and her skin appeared youthfully radiant.
I instantly admired how good she looked and how she single-handedly maintained a modest, genuine spirit of
joie de vivre
. Yet the sight of her small figure and bright face coming down the walkway also evoked a protective instinct I’ve often had for her, almost as if she were the child and I her guardian. For, although Mom possessed French good taste, she wasn’t haughty about it; she had a shy, meek demeanor, due to some mysterious trauma from her childhood which she once alluded to but refused to fully explain, saying only, “Grandmother Ondine and I went through some bad times before I got married. But one must take the bitter with the better.” I could never get her to say anything more.
Today though, Mom was especially happy and animated. “Céline, you made it! How lovely you look with your California suntan!” she exclaimed approvingly, kissing me on first one cheek, then the other. I stooped to meet her halfway, because I was so much taller. Her eyes were dark while mine were blue; in fact all I inherited from her was her auburn-colored hair—I wore mine in a waist-length braid, while hers was cut chic and short. I liked the familiar
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