Chapter 16 I The Anarchists on the Montmartre Hill (2) Picasso and Matisse

Matisse: colour; Picasso: form.Two great genres, one great purpose. Wassily Kandinsky 27 Frelis Street.A house with two floors and a gallery next door.The housing part consists of: several bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen where people also eat dinner; the gallery is a hall.The hall was furnished with waxed Italian Renaissance furniture, a fire, two or three tables covered with flowers and china, a fireplace, and on the wall between the two windows hung a large, plastered cross. There is not a single square inch of space on the walls, and paintings are everywhere: Gauguin, Delacroix, El Greco, Monet, Braque, Valadon, Cézanne, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso, and others Painter's painting.

This is not a museum.Since most paintings at the time were not worth a lot of money, there was only one key on the gallery door.It was the common flat American key, which is indispensible in the jingling key-chains that hang from Parisians' overcoats. The Stan brothers and sisters live here.Saturday is their reception day.They are so generous with their guests that almost anyone can go.When the hostess asks the polite question "Who sent you?", it is enough for you to answer with the name of any painter whose work is exhibited here. We enter the gallery.There are already a large number of painters, writers and poets there... In those famine years, it was naturally very popular to eat and drink for free at Stein's house every week.Of course, it is not ruled out that a few of the guests are indeed interested in modern art.Most of the guests are pleasant.

In the innermost part of the hall, there is a person with his hands in the pockets of his vest, talking to the admirers around him, that is Guillaume Apollinaire.It is futile to try to compare his eloquence with him, he is a jack of all trades, and in any debate, he always wins.Miss Stein, who had never been so confident in herself, frankly admitted that she only won one debate with him, and that was because he was drunk. The tall, strong man standing by the fireplace with a serious face was Braque.The reason why he was so unhappy was that one of his paintings hanging above the fireplace was blackened by the smoke from the fireplace.The colors of the two adjacent Cézanne watercolors also dimmed.Braque grumbled, thinking that he would take on the hard work of hanging pictures next time (while the concierge was hammering nails into the wall, he, the greatest painter, was laboriously holding his heavy drawing board to the wall. When hanging), you will definitely be asked to change the position of this picture.He regretted very much that he hadn't said anything at the last dinner together.But he has an excuse: at the dinner table, each painter is facing his own work, surrounded by his colleagues, it is difficult to make critical comments in this situation...

This evening, Picasso was also present.It is his consistent attitude not to complain or speak strange words on such occasions.Disgust and hatred of social events are difficult to express in French.He looked at Dr. Matisse, who was eloquently making various comments, with a mocking expression.On this day, Picasso was in the same state as his friend on the Rue d'Auxerre: furious.He had just found his two among the paintings hanging on the wall.Their appearance has changed, and the light is much brighter than the original painting.It was Gertrude Stein who sent these two paintings here for display, the woman who loves all things shiny...

Max Jacob tried in every possible way to persuade him to make his friend sensible.He only managed to keep Picasso from leaving the scene immediately, but Picasso did not go to the door of Stein's house on Frelis Street for several weeks. While he was looking for Fernand with his eyes, a stranger came up to him, pointed to the painting that the painter had just finished after returning from Gossole, and asked: "Is this Gertrude Stein?" "yes." "This portrait doesn't look like her." Picasso shrugged his shoulders and said: "It doesn't matter, she will gradually resemble it in the future."

Fernand was talking to a lady in black and gray.The lady was still young, with a pair of sparkling gemstone earrings, and her low voice and serious attitude made people feel that she was young and old.People often think that she is a servant, but she is not.However, when she talked with Fernand, it made people feel that she was really a servant.She is always absent-minded, her body is here, but her ears are listening elsewhere, even though she can't hear anything, she still listens.Because she is too attached to Miss Stein, she usually doesn't pay much attention to Mrs. Picasso's conversation with her, because the hostess is usually very cold to this lady, saying: "She always talks about three things, and only three things: hats, perfumes, etc. and fur clothing."

But this evening was special. They were talking about whether Fernand could give Alice Douglas French lessons.While answering questions posed to her by her future teacher, Miss America was minding her usual responsibilities: who was drinking and who wasn't drinking; who was eating and who wasn't; where was the little stove, What is still missing; why Miss Stein still hasn't arrived, can people listen to her carefully? Some sponsored writers have to converse with artist and Dr. Matisse, should she intervene if some nasty person interrupts their conversation Woolen cloth?Would Brancusi coming this way interrupt their conversation? ...

Alice Douglas respected and adored Miss Gertrude Stein, because she was both her boss and her friend, and helped her grow in many ways, and made her personality possess the rare advantages in others benefactor.Gertrude Stein aspires to become a bright pearl in the literary world, and considers himself a genius of world literary innovation and a female Picasso in the literary world.It was Alice who helped her establish this belief.This is the main role of Alice, who is also a typist for Gertrude Stein's works. Miss Stein has just appeared at the gallery door.She was wearing a brown tight dress, her shoulders were tightly locked in a metal ring, and the squeezed muscles covered the edge of the metal ring.To keep out the cold, she wore wool socks that were tightly tucked into perforated leather sandals that creaked as she walked on the waxed floor.

Miss Stein noticed at a glance that everyone saw her arrive, and she was very relieved for that.She handed Miss Douglas a stack of manuscripts and asked her to type them.Then, with a long sigh, she said that writing was such a chore.However, she was lucky. Since the beginning of the year, a magazine in New York has had the honor of publishing three of her articles, and she has just sent another one to this magazine. She strode toward the large portrait of Picasso and sat down in front of a portrait of herself.Immediately afterwards, Henri Matisse, Robert Delaunay, Maurice de Vlaminck and three guys who often come to eat free food gathered around her.

Gertrude Stein was the general director of organizing such gatherings of artists.She loves playing this role.She sat under her portrait as St. Louis sat under his tree, commanding majesticly and throwing an angry look at anyone who dared to intervene.Some writers took issue with a few of her announcements in the American papers, and some painters dared to be unfaithful to her, their great benefactor, both spiritual and material.She must not tolerate these people.She gave exhibition space to those who refused to participate in official art exhibitions, and these artists made both fame and profit.How did Matisse eat his fill?Thanks to her.

Gertrude Stein loves the Matisse family.Whenever she went to their home, she was always surprised by the atmosphere that enveloped it, and naturally felt very relieved.Picasso was a libertine.Matisse was poor but elegant.No matter where they are, people don't eat much, but if they are on the left bank of the Seine, people get rid of all illusions and show their true colors naked.Mrs. Matisse's specialty dish, twice-cooked beef with onions, was wiped out in no time.She fully supports her husband's career.One day, Matisse asked her to disguise herself as a gypsy wandering woman with a guitar in her hand as a model for his paintings.She fell asleep sitting there, and the guitar fell and broke.At the time, the family had only enough money to eat, but she insisted that she was hungry and saved the money to repair the guitar.In this way, Matisse was able to complete his painting. Another time, Gertrude Stein saw a very beautiful fruit basket on the table.This basket is forbidden to be touched by anyone, because it is specially reserved for the painter's work.In winter, they prefer to turn off the heating in the house so that the fruit will not rot.Wearing a coat and woolen gloves, Matisse painted natural scenes that no longer exist outdoors in winter. Gertrude Stein liked to invite both Matisse and Picasso.Because they admire each other, never boast about themselves, and have a sense of proportion to others and themselves.When you are with them, the atmosphere is very harmonious. The situation of Matisse and Picasso is very different, similar to the South Pole and the North Pole.The Frenchman (Matisse) is a little stiff, blunt, inflexible, very serious and doesn't like to laugh.Family members are not friends, but wives and daughters.He doesn't treat guests very often.Once he speaks, he always maintains the most serious attitude in the world, it is to persuade others.André Salmon recalls: "The beautiful painter lived happily, but he couldn't laugh." [Excerpt from André Salmon's "The Air of Boot Mountain", published in 1945] In a slightly xenophobic essay, Dougelles described him as resembling "a German military officer" with his "worried beard" and his "stately and unadorned spectacles." Apollinaire's description is even better, and more concise: "This beast is a gentleman." He described Matisse's solemn expression when he was painting, and he painted several paintings at the same time, each painting for a quarter of an hour. The Spaniard (Picasso) is silent.He expresses his thoughts more with his eyes and mocks others with his eyes.When the French are polite, he is brutal.Dodge salons and gang gatherings, and when passion breaks out, express it with a brush. However, the two painters still had what they had in common: an interest in primitivism, and their friendship with the hostess of the Rue Fleuris, each closely following the other. On the wall of the Fleuris Street Gallery, there are paintings by both of them at the same time.It was clear to them, and the Stan brothers and sisters knew from the moment they found them: they were the two giants of modern art. They will have new admirers of their own: Matisse has Leon and his brother Muchael, Picasso has Gertrude.Right now, given the complex relationship between siblings, the rift between them has not been fully exposed to an irreparable level.But Matisse is already showing jealousy of the American woman (Gertrude) who is often alone with the Spaniard, who is twelve years her junior; Braque and Derain are also beginning to envy them, and they gradually break away from their original gang , the purpose is to figure out the secret that happened upstairs in the "laundry boat". They got to the bottom of it and asked: What happened upstairs?