Chapter 10 I Anarchists on the hills of Montmartre (1) Fernand, goddess of beauty

The obsession with female sex makes my eyes heavy like a weight of several kilograms. bryce sandras In the "laundry boat", Picasso lived on the uppermost floor, the foyer level of this peculiar building.Imitating the signs of cafes and bistros, he wrote in chalk on the entrance door panel: "Meeting place of poets".Visitors (there are many) push the sign and discover a small entrance.The entrance opened onto a small room with a moldy floor.Enter the room, which contains a bed and a rusty iron stove.The room smelled heavily of black tobacco cigarettes, kerosene, and sesame oil.In the darkness, a washbasin instead of a washbasin could be discerned, and a towel and a small piece of black soap were casually thrown in the basin.There was also a straw mat chair, several tripods, canvases of various sizes, and numerous paint tubes, brushes, and containers full of thinner littered on the floor.A white mouse poking its head behind a desk with drawers has nothing to fear from Frika, a docile little bitch.A kerosene lamp was the only source of light in the room.In one corner of the room was a tub with dozens of books in it.Here, a black wooden box is used as a seat, and there a bucket is filled with waste water, waiting to be emptied.The whole house is messy and disorganized.

The only exception is the bed. On the bed, a tall, attractive, brown-haired but lethargic young girl of 23 was resting.Picasso's dark, magnetic eyes stared straight at her.The girl's name is Fernand Olivier (Figure 7).Unlike the women who came from the brothel and the women who came and went, she was Picasso's favorite woman.While she hasn't completely and completely replaced all of them just yet, the day will come. Picasso first met Fernand near the fountain on Rue La Vignan.Later, they met again at the water pipe on the first floor, and they only exchanged a few words briefly.She also lives on the "laundry boat".They met again when Picasso was with friends at the Place de la Vignan.She marveled at Picasso's "big, heavy, piercing, thoughtful, burning eyes."She couldn't tell how old he was.She liked his lips and his broad nose, which gave her something vulgar.He had woman's hands, was poorly dressed, and she thought him haughty and shy.

As for him, he was fascinated by her mannerisms, her hat, her unfamiliar elegance and beauty. One rainy night, he met her in the dim corridor of the "Hunter's Pavilion".In her arms was a kitten that he had just picked up from under the eaves, and he gave it to her on the spot after picking it up. That night, she told the painter about her life full of thorns and joys: a painful childhood; abandoning her parents; finding a husband to escape the family hell; losing a child; A difficult divorce; an association with a sculptor who advised her to model; several lovers; her dreams and sorrows...

Picasso was fascinated by her and fell in love with her to the point of madness.One morning, he asked Apollinaire to help him wipe off the "poet meeting place", and the two of them spent a whole day cleaning the floor, walls and even the ceiling.In the evening, the poet asked Fernand to visit their room, and he desperately hoped that she could fall down as soon as possible... She did fall flat, but it was a mixture of cologne, turpentine, kerosene, and low-quality sodium chlorate that got her down.But this kind of thing doesn't happen every time, and this time it's only for a short time: she has a lover.As for him, he has Madeleine, but like the mysterious protagonists in the familiar "Woman with a Wig" and "Woman in a Shirt" (Fig. 8), she always eludes him.

Whenever Fernand came into his room, he always stared at her with burning eyes.If she forgot something, he immediately hid them, and when she was awake, he was always by her side, never leaving her.He forgot his friends, forgot to paint, and only had her in his heart.He begged her to come and live with him, but she hesitated.She is afraid of his jealousy and violence.He attacked her every time, and conquered her without exception.This frightened her a little.But as soon as a gift was given to her, she completely melted, surrendered, and lost all resistance.He often has no money, but this does not prevent him from giving her books, tea and perfume.The perfume he gave had a strong fragrance, and she liked it very much.Whenever she goes somewhere, people will know it once they smell such a strong fragrance, and exclaim: "Hey, Mrs. Picasso is not far from here, she is nearby!"

He kept painting her portraits.After she took the necessary poses, she carefully watched his every move.The room was messy, but it didn't hinder her emotions at all, and she didn't care.On the contrary, the owner of the house criticized her attitude of "absent-mindedness and not maintaining a good posture" very politely, but mercilessly.Fernand tried to make Picasso understand that when receiving women, he must be clean and tidy.See, she has played the role of educating young men. She had a lot to do, and Picasso was jealous of it.He is like this now, and he will be like this in the future. He is jealous and jealous of everything and everyone in his life.He could never bear the thought of his woman or friend abandoning him or forgetting him, unless it was his own initiative.He treated Fernand in the same way he treated Françoise Guillot fifty years later.He once advised Françoise to wear a veil and a heel-length gown.He said: "In this way, you will be less noticeable than other people, and they will not take advantage of you or even pay attention to you." Lowe's "Living with Picasso"]

He tried to lock the beauty Fernand in his room, not allowing her to go out, and not allowing her to act as a model for others elsewhere.At that time, Picasso had already expressed his disgust at the fact that the women in his life were not only his models.Fernand made a model for van Dongen in 1906, semi-naked, with one breast fully exposed, and the work was called "Beauty Fernand".For this, Picasso slapped her.One day, he suspected that Fernand had consciously attracted the attention of a customer in the bar, and made a scene with her like a storm.Since then, she never went out again.He would rather take care of everything himself, including purchasing, than risk her exchanging a glance with someone else.

His domineering behavior made his friends feel very ridiculous.Apollinaire satirized Picasso not maliciously in "Sitting Woman": "In order to truly own a woman, one must abduct her, confine her, and possess her all the time." [Excerpt from Guillaume Apollinaire's "Sitting Woman" published in 1948] Picasso was sometimes passionate, sometimes icy, and his mood was volatile, but he never treated people with a gentle attitude.In this circle of precarious poverty that weighs heavily on people's minds every moment, he leads a colorful married life in the Arabian style: she no longer works, he buys everything for her and does everything for her.

One morning, Picasso promised her a surprise tonight. "You want to send me a portrait painted for me?" He put his hands in the pockets of his overalls and laughed, and repeated: "A surprise..." In the evening, she came.He waited impatiently for her arrival.He gave her some things he had just acquired: a small oil lamp and a long bamboo pipe with an ivory sleeve. "Is this tobacco new?" "come here……" He made her lie on a sheet on the floor, and he lay down next to her, and opened a box containing something amber and black and doughy; The arrow lit the oil lamp, heated the ball with the lamp head, put it on the end of the pipe, and smoked.Then he handed the pipe to his beloved Fernand.Only then did she realize that he was smoking, not only smoking heavy black smoke, but also a heavy opium smoker.

They didn't fall asleep until it was almost dawn. She spent three days in his house.Picasso worked at night.When she left him, she also fell in love with him.