A Life of Picasso 1907-1917 by John Richardson

Another Schumann.  This one is dear to me because I played it for my Master's recital another life ago:  Kreisleriana Op. 16.  Johannes Kreisler was a character in E.T.A. Hoffman's absurdist stories.  He was a mad Kapellmeister (choral director).  The directions Schumann wrote is to start the work "playing as fast as you can".  By the end his directions are "play faster still".  It reminds me of the Red Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass.

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else—if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!

If you listen, you hear Kreisleriana galloping on his horse to church.  He gets there and directs a choir, real or imaginary, it is not known.  When he finishes, he jumps back onto his horse and "races off in all directions."

A Life of Picasso, Vol. 2: The Painter of Modern Life, 1907-1917 by John  Richardson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is the second of three volumes of the artist's life. The first one traced his early life and this one continues as Picasso becomes entrenched in the Parisian Bohemian world, surrounding himself with artists, poets, writers, and in the last chapters,the ballet.

These years largely concentrate around Picasso's cubist works and his relationship with other cubist artists, especially Braque.

We also learn about his tempestuous love affairs, leaving off one, another one dying, and yet others who abandon him.

This is also the Great War years, where many of his colleagues joined in the fight, while Picasso, belonging to a neutral country, stayed out. He also chose to stay out of Paris for most of the war years to avoid the humiliation of a woman handing him a white feather, which the ladies of Paris were offering to all the men who refused to go to the front.

This volume ends just as Picasso is becoming involved with Diaghilev's Ballet troupe, creating sets, collaborating with Eric Satie, whom he admired, and Jean Cocteau, whom he loathed.

We are just introduced to the ballerina Olga Khokhlova, whom Picasso will eventually marry, when the volume rather abruptly ends.

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A postcard I send out to people in my international postcard swap club.