> Both men start crying like little boys, and change their stories so many times that the magistrate quickly realizes that they have nothing to do with the stolen painting. Both are soon released.
I would have expected that behavior to make them seem guilty enough to warrant holding them until their stories are thoroughly examined.
Shakespearean actor, mountaineer and explorer BRIAN BLESSED has a brilliant story about the time, as a young boy, he met Picasso and narrowly avoided saving his family from poverty: https://youtu.be/ZH4cWoetw4s?si=CjLg5P5MDrlqNFpU&t=1352
The part where Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apolliniare attempt to throw the ancient sculptures they have stolen from the Louvre into the Seine because they are scared of getting caught stealing them...
After learning of this, I now value Pablo Picasso (the person) somewhat differently. He was ~26 in 1907. Not a kid.
This probably explains why e.g. I had never heard of this before: https://jacobin.com/2023/06/pablo-picasso-brooklyn-museum-ga...
"great artists steal" (attributed to Picasso) after all!
Great point.
Of course, mere copying is vastly different from copying plus theft and attempted burying/hiding of the original [inspiration].
> The part where Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apolliniare attempt to throw the ancient sculptures they have stolen from the Louvre into the Seine because they are scared of getting caught stealing them...
Planning to do something bad and not following through is not the same thing as doing the bad thing.
(What mixture of it was conscience, and what mixture was fear of getting caught?)
No, not planning; attempting but failing. You didn't look at all of the eh, article.
I did look at the "article", and I've looked at the way the event has been described in other sources. I double checked before I responded to you, too.
In the end, we'll never know why they didn't dump the suitcase in the river.
> > (What mixture of it was conscience, and what mixture was fear of getting caught?)
"They decide to put the sculptures in a suitcase and drop it in the Seine. *They wander the streets all night but never find the right moment to do so*."
What does "never find the right moment to do so" mean?
As posited above: because of conscience?
Because of fear of getting caught dropping a suitcase?
And, of course, I suggest one go to more primary sources. The only one we really have is Fernande Olivier, who said (translation):
> After a hastily swallowed dinner and a long evening’s wait, they set out on foot around midnight with the suitcase; at two in the morning they were back, worn out and still carrying the suitcase with the statues inside.
> They had wandered the streets never finding the right moment, never daring to get rid of the suitcase. They thought they were being followed and conjured up in imagination a thou sand possibilities. . . . Although I shared their fears, I had been watching them rather closely that night. I am sure that perhaps involuntarily they had been play-acting a little: to such a point that, while waiting for “the moment of the crime,” although neither of them knew how, they had pretended to play cards—doubtless in imitation of certain bandits they had read about. In the end Apollinaire spent the night at Picasso’s and went the next morn ing to Paris-Journal, where he turned in the undesirable statues under a pledge of secrecy.
I read in all of these sources a lot of ambiguity about why they didn't. You find certainty, perhaps-- I don't.
Certainly not kids, but then also men only reach maturity around 30 years old (around 25 for women).
The poet Guillaume Apollinaire was also arrested on suspicion of this theft.
He wrote a poem about the experience of being jailed:
https://allpoetry.com/poem/14329550---La-Sant--by-Guillaume-...
I think “La Santé” was the name of the prison. The English translation of the title loses this double meaning.
I'm not that good with French, but verse IV appears to be about guards pissing in the next cell.
La Fontaine, I think, was the title of Marcel Duchamp's urinal installation; I suspect it might be a common euphemism?
Sentenced to 1 year and 15 days for stealing the Mona Lisa, what a laughable punishment compared to today’s standards.(also, Picasso was accused and never convicted, Vincenzo Peruggia was the actual thief that was convicted)
And to be clear, Peruggia was sentenced to that time. Picasso was never sentenced.
Today's standards are indeed different: if rich or famous enough, you can commit dozens of felonies, receive no prison time or other actual punishment, and be sworn in as president!
> Today's standards are indeed different
The rulers of yesteryear are surely grateful that, in time, even the worst sins get washed away.
"Politicians used to be honorable" must be as commonly said across generations as "kids these days are just so disrespectful".
Thanks, I updated the response (:
I don't think it then had the near-mythic reverence it now commands, and the theft was partly responsible for bringing its current status about.
Have you consider living conditions in prison from that time?
i think most people nowadays would make the trade
...
Being a communist makes you a bad person?
Sometimes I forget I'm not on a European website
Most people from eastern Europe agree that communists should not be treated differently than Nazis.
Not just that, but a community in the early 1900s...? before communism was even attempted at large scale? you don't have the "it's been tried and it didn't work" excuse to criticize him for.
He was a Communist until his death in the 1970s, but Communism is a pretty broad spectrum and his beliefs moved about it during his life. His public and financial support for Stalinism in France until the mid-1950s was a bad error of judgement.
I saw the idea more as a reflection of a contradiction within his traits, which is also a common human characteristic. Regarding the ‘-isms’ it’s worth noting that nearly all intellectuals associated with Surrealism leaned towards the left wing. A notable exception is Dalí, who was mocked with the ‘Avido Dollars’ anagram.
Dali was a fascist who hits women
There are all combinations of people, what is special/different in Dali comparing to almost all people is that he said that himself about the violence to some women.
How can one “be a communist” when the entire idea is predicated on a small central authority telling the rest of the country what to do and how to do it?
Or did you mean “one of the small ruling elite” communists?
What? Central/eastern Europe than remembers communism definitely considers communists bad people.
Picasso has been characterised as a womaniser and a misogynist
Enjoyable news format; the drawings are a bit crude, not that much considering we're talking about Picasso, but it's more pleasant to read, on a screen, than pure text.