Chapter 36 II From Montparnasse to the War (1) The Cock and the Clown

I got home.The storm was so strong that in two days I lost the black that had taken me two months to gain. Jean Cocteau Jean Cocteau lives at 10 rue Anjou.He likes to receive visiting guests here.It was here that Victor Hugo's great-grandson, Jean Hugo, met him: The poet stands among his male and female admirers, holding a telephone receiver in one hand, imagining his voice meandering to each other through the telephone wires dragging on the carpet, and his mood is full of excitement. [Excerpt from Jean Hugo's Memories, published in 1994] Here Jean Cocteau reads his poem "The Cape of Good Hope" to a group of visitors.Pilot Roland Garros not only inscribed his poem, but also created the opportunity for him to discover the joys of flying in the air.

The poet Cocteau stands behind a brand new desk.There are many painted flowers on the table.He was wearing a black suit and a white tie, with a gardenia gift pinned to the button, which he promised everyone would change every day.But they're not from Paris, that's too common, they're from London. After he read the poem aloud, he asked the audience for their opinions.Misia Selt, the daughter of the Polish sculptor Cyprian Godesky, was a very good friend of Diaghilev's.She led the applause, encouraged by theater actor Roland Bertin and painter Valentine Groz.Valentine Groz was the future wife of Jean Hugo, and it was she who brought Jean Cocteau into the circle of artists in Montparnasse.André Breton, a military doctor in a tight military uniform, said nothing. After Cocteau finished reading, he left the scene.

This scene happened before Cocteau visited Picasso.After some time, he began to actively create conditions for the realization of his plan. Cocteau opened the wardrobe door and, among the costumes he had prepared for one of Diaghilev's ballets, chose the most appropriate costume for him here and now.He eventually settles on a clown costume: colorful pants and a shirt with argyle patterns. He put on his clothes and pants.Just as he was about to go out, it suddenly occurred to him that in Paris under war, wandering around in such a gorgeous costume would definitely cause him trouble.So, after a little hesitation, he put on a coat with a long hem over the bright and gorgeous costume, but a section of the clown costume was still exposed at the ankle.He thought that if anyone asked, he would answer that the fancy dress he was wearing...

Cocteau hops into a taxi and asks to be taken to the Rue de Ssurce.His heart was pounding as he went up the stairs.How would Picasso receive his handsome visitor?Did the period of mourning prevent him from painting warm portraits? The poet Cocteau rang the bell.The painter opened the door for him.The poet took off his overcoat, revealing his true face: he is full of beauties.The painter did not say a word. He neither placed any canvases in the bright place of the window facing the Montparnasse cemetery, nor took any drawing boards and brushes.Cocteau was disappointed.When he wrote about it later, he comforted himself:

In 1916 he (Picasso) wanted to paint me in a clown costume.The result was a cubist portrait. [Excerpt from "Picasso" by Jean Cocteau] When Cocteau came to Picasso's house again, the latter finally got rid of the grief caused by Eva's death.After Serge Ferrat and Irene Lagui, it was Gabi, a young girl from Montparnasse, who really comforted Picasso and healed his wounds.But not long after, Picasso ditched the girl and opened his heart to Paquette, a fashion model in Poiret, who then took Olga in.Olga became his first wife (Fig. 47). Cocteau waited patiently.Since Picasso's creative energy was elsewhere at the time, he had to ask Modigliani and Kisling to paint him.

Like Sandras, Moise Kisling was discharged after the Battle of Karansi.He eked out a living with the help of Polish writers.Adolph Basley admired Manoru so much that he sold Manoru's paintings in his home. Kisling always wore a tattered blue overalls and a pair of sandals that got him into endless trouble on the sidewalk.The clothes he wore when he came to France from Poland will soon enter the history museum and become a souvenir.He was carefree all day long, caring only about eating, drinking and having fun, unconsciously forming the habits of his new comrades, wearing the clothes they wore, and having a very stubborn personality.He already had such a character before the war. In 1914, he dueled another Polish painter, Leopold Gottlepo.No one knows what the reason for this brother-in-law killing each other is.The duel was held in the Parc des Princes, and there happened to be a bicycle training track nearby, and many cyclists were training.Andre Salmon was Kisling's witness, Gottrepo's was Diego Rivera.They first used pistols, the shooting distance was set at 25 meters, and each person fired two bullets.Then, both sides use sabers.Kisling had never used a hand-to-hand weapon. Two knives were flying in the air, and the cyclists interrupted training to applaud them. The audience was emotional.Witnesses from both sides asked for a break to bandage the wound.But the two Poles unanimously refused, and the fight intensified and lasted an hour, both sides were wounded.Finally, Gotlepo's knife chipped off part of his compatriot's nose, and the battle was declared over.Kisling, whose face was covered in blood, smiled and shouted to the audience: "Look everyone, Poland has been partitioned for the fourth time!"

Six weeks later, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Poland's fifth partition. While waiting for Picasso's heart to open to him, Cocteau visited Kisling's studio on Rue Joseph-Balla one day.Modigliani was there too.It is time for the two painters to paint the portrait of the poet.Cocteau brought a bottle of gin and two bottles of limoncello, as he wished to have a still life before him. "Impossible!" Modigliani said decisively. He doesn't like still lifes. "...but I like gin that fizzes." He snatched the gin bottle, squeezed lemonade into it, poured it and drank one, then two, then three, and finally Just grab the bottle and drink it.

Kisling was mad with rage. Cocteau waited silently. A few weeks later, he was wild with joy: Picasso decided to paint his portrait.Did Picasso, who was led by the nose by a bright and lively young man, know that he was about to change the whole world?When Picasso and Cocteau broke into the big world side by side and hand in hand, did he know that everything in the previous "laundry boat" was about to be completely buried? Maybe he doesn't know.He and others are not ignorant.This is Morris Sachs' point of view.He explained why Max Jacob and Picasso fell into Cocteau's trap in the first place: because they needed "a shrewd publicist".They provided Cocteau with the new avant-garde ideas and avant-garde art he needed, while at the same time taking advantage of Cocteau's talent for mediation.Cocteau was a good "activist," and they took advantage of that.The relationship between them is "mutual friendship is only a disguise, and under the words of friendship, there is actually a deep mutual antagonism and contempt".

This statement may be a bit exaggerated, but it has its truth.Soon, people can see the contradictions and antagonisms between them.Cocteau and Picasso will work together for the Ballets Russes.Later, there was a barrier and a distance between the painter and the poet.Gertrude Stein tells a very telling story.One day, Picasso was interviewed by a newspaper in Catalonia, Barcelona.The conversation involved Jean Cocteau.Picasso said solemnly: This man is famous in Paris, and his poems are placed on the desks of all fashionable barbers. French newspapers published the interview, and Cocteau saw it.He did everything possible to find Picasso and get him to explain his conversation.Picasso avoided seeing.In order to extinguish the fire that could destroy his reputation, Cocteau announced to a newspaper that the person who used such words to attack him was not Picasso, but Picabia.Unfortunately, Picabia debunked the rumors.Cocteau turned and attacked the Picasso fortress again.He asked the painter to come forward to refute Picabia's remarks, but Picasso remained silent.

Not long after, Picasso and his wife went to the theater and happened to meet Cocteau's mother.The mother asked Picasso to declare that he was not the one who had slandered his son in Spain.Picasso's wife was very sympathetic to the poor mother, and replied that Picasso had indeed never spoken of Jean Cocteau in those terms. In this way, the poet is relieved, and the dispute between them about this interview has finally subsided. Before long, however, new dark clouds began to loom over their heads.When Picasso began to approach the Surrealists in the 1920s, the relationship between them was already drizzling.These surrealists hated Cocteau's "The Widower on the Roof".During and after the Spanish War, when Picasso clearly sided politically with the left, there was a stormy confrontation between them.As the war came, so did the storm between them: Cocteau, who somewhat miraculously managed to evade the cleansing, went so far as to openly pledge his allegiance to Arno Briquet...

After a long time, in the 1960s, although Picasso did not refuse him to visit the door, he will never forget what he did.It was not only Picasso who held this attitude towards Cocteau.Françoise Gillot once said: He and Paul Eluard were in Saint-Tropez near Marseille, the bathing beach of Saint-Tropez Bay near Marseille, France.At that time, a yacht came and docked in the harbor in front of Senecchier's house, and Cocteau got off the yacht.Ai Luya, who never liked him, was very indifferent to him.Under Cocteau's repeated insistence, Éluard shook hands with him coldly.It's better to hold than not to hold.It's worth Cocteau's boast that Éluard was his "a very good friend"... Picasso never warmed to him. After Éluard's death in 1952, Picasso's attitude changed slightly. There is a question that no one can answer. Cocteau was very popular in Montparnasse in the 1960s, and there was another poet as popular as him, and maybe even longer.He also wrote poetry, novels, and dramas. He has various talents. Although he is also very good at pleasing the ladies in the salon, he did not spend much effort to break into the circle of literary and artistic pioneers and elites of the times. The reason is simple , because he was essentially one of them.Who is this?He is Guillaume Apollinaire. Cocteau and Apollinaire have known each other since 1916.At first, their relationship was filled with suspicion and mistrust.Apollinaire wrote to Picasso in 1917 that the relationship between him and Cocteau had improved slightly.Is this because the young Cocteau completely fell at the feet of Apollinaire in the letter written in March? I assure you that we will work together, and I have always believed in the past that our communication will not be interrupted.Forgive me for insisting at the risk of others thinking that "this young man is trying to prepare his own future."It is only for the sake of our common cause that I so boldly and solemnly ask you to resume our relations.Even your distrust of me makes me happy, just like a disguised mason who meets another master and perceives his reservations and still admires him. [Excerpt from the Correspondence of Jean Cocteau and Guillaume Apollinaire published in 1991] Or maybe it was Picasso's intervention?According to Cocteau, it was Picasso who insisted that the two poets meet and work together. I am very pleased that we have such an important meeting, and I am also very happy that Picasso wholeheartedly hopes that we can reconcile. He often said "I hope you and Apollinaire can love each other". [Excerpt from Correspondence between Jean Cocteau and Guillaume Apollinaire published in 1991, letter dated April 13, 1917] The relationship between Cocteau and Apollinaire has its ups and downs.Cocteau complained that Apollinaire considered him a "suspicious figure", and Apollinaire resented the possibility of Cocteau's attempt to usurp him to replace Max Jacobs next to Picasso.In the final analysis, it is the rumors and rumors in the society and the legendary stories that constantly add shadows to the relationship between them. Time is passing.When Cocteau announced his intention to take Paris during the war, he had in mind a location in Paris, not the city itself.This is the position that Guillaume Apollinaire once occupied and gave up with his death.The deep root of the estrangement and disputes between them for many years lies in this: If Apollinaire is alive, what will Cocteau's fate be like?