Cubism. Guillaume Apollinaire

      While following the conceptual and compositional stages of the painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and observing the development of its separate images and the parallel appearance of ideas and pictures, we see how Picasso “formulates what he wishes to express”, critically studies the creative process itself, stubbornly forces his hand to learn anew and to discard habitual virtuosity and an almost “automatic mastery”. “Never was labour less well paid with joys,” wrote Salmon,[2] who observed Picasso in his oppressed, troubled, agitated state of mind. Derain did not exclude the possibility of suicide.[3] Yet Picasso’s solitude and seclusion were not demoralising. Recalling that period, he said that work had saved him; indeed, will-power helped to overcome the vagueness of his goal as he laboured over the simplest studies and academic models. Each consecutive stage was a new step into the unknown; every step was a violation of the status quo, a transcendence of given limits, a broadening of possibilities. “But what fatigue, imperfection, crudeness!”