One of Picasso's most famous paintings.
In 1900, Picasso and his friend, the artist Casajemas, went to Paris.
It was there that Pablo Picasso became acquainted with the work of the Impressionists.
His life at this time was fraught with many difficulties, and the suicide of Carlos Casajemas deeply
had an effect on the young Picasso.
Under these circumstances, at the beginning of 1902, he began to produce works in a style that would later be called the Blue Period.
Picasso developed this style upon his return to Barcelona in 1903-1904.
Work transition period- from “blue” to “pink” - “Girl on a Ball” 1905.
In the work of Pablo Picasso, the painting “Girl on a Ball” opens the so-called “pink period”,
which replaced “blue” and still retains its echoes. .
The painting “Girl on a Ball” does not belong to Cubism (as is known, Picasso is the founder of Cubism).
Truly a picture of a transitional period. The classification is complex, it can be attributed to the Art Nouveau style.
On the canvas “Girl on a Ball” Picasso depicted a traveling troupe of acrobats.
In the center of the composition are two artists - a girl gymnast and a strongman.
A child balances on a ball, rehearsing his routine.
The girl's figure is gracefully curved, she raised her arms to maintain her fragile balance.
The athlete sits motionless, his powerful body filled with calm.
The two artists stand in stark contrast to each other.
On the one hand, the fragility and impetuosity of a thin girl on a ball, and on the other, the strength, power and static character of a man sitting on
Main expressive means Picasso is still a line.
But unlike the paintings of the “blue” period, here we also see perspective. In the canvas “Girl on a Ball” is built using
several horizontal lines and small figures in the background (a woman with a child and a snow-white horse). Because of this
the picture does not look flat, it has lightness and airiness.
An image of a bare desert or steppe is selected as the background. This setting doesn't really fit the mood of the circus.
Thus, the artist emphasizes that the life of these people does not consist only of fun, rejoicing and applause from the audience.
There is also need, grief, illness.
The color scheme chosen by the artist is also very characteristic.
The blue color, so beloved by Picasso, remained only in the clothes of athletes and gymnasts.
The rest of the picture is dominated by shades of pink.
The picture is alive and very dynamic, How did the artist achieve such dynamics?
Let's look at the picture in detail, and, without invading the competence of art history, let's study visual solutions.
The first thing you can pay attention to is the contrast between the youth and plasticity of the girl and the experience and strength of the athlete. The ball on which the girl maintains her delicate balance is contrasted with a cubic circus prop on which the athlete sits.
Thus, there is contrast and conflict - not only between the two characters, but also the two states of a person that occur to him during his life, a conflict of generations.
Let us note that the conflict is not stated by the artist in the actions of the characters; in the picture the relationships are rather related, perhaps they are brother and sister, the girl is open, the athlete’s gaze is calm.
All this is quite obvious and well known.
Let's take a closer look.
The girl is drawn in cold colors, the athlete in warm colors.
Usually, cold tones visually characterize the character negatively and perhaps it looks strange for a pretty girl who was drawn by a great artist. But, if you remember your teenage period, didn’t we get into confrontation with adults on any occasion? Didn't they violate the rules established in society - formal and informal? This is a mechanism inherent in nature that destabilizes social system in general, but at the same time pushing the boundaries of universal human perception.
There is anxiety in the colors with which the girl is drawn. This is her fear of losing balance, and the athlete’s anxiety for the girl, and the elder’s anxiety for the future of the young ones.
The girl's plasticity is contrastingly emphasized by the static, calm posture of the athlete. In the girl’s bends there is not only a desire to maintain balance, but also an impulsive character, a readiness for games and provocations; in the athlete’s gaze there is solidity and a readiness to catch and support; in the muscles and the athlete’s very pose there is strength and readiness for fast, dexterous movements.
The girl's direction is forward, towards the viewer, into the future. The athlete sits with his back to the viewer, looking mature man turned to the past.
The emerging movement of time is emphasized by a little girl in a red dress; she logically completes the time within the picture - childhood, adolescence, maturity.
Now let's do some experiments.
Using graphics editor, let’s change the girl’s tone to warm...
and also - we will remove people...
...and a horse in the background.
With each integration into the artist's original plan, the internal tension and movement of the painting decreases noticeably. The “disappearance” of the horse makes the landscape lifeless and deprives the picture of an important warm emotional component. A grazing horse is a uniform, peaceful, lively and warm movement. A little girl's dress fluttering in the wind is another important movement, light and airy. Deprived of these accents, the picture becomes a dry, almost documentary sketch, a sketch. And nothing in it provokes the viewer’s imagination to think about the passage of time, about the relationships between generations, about new trends and eternal values. The picture ceases to be a deep philosophical parable.
Try in your imagination to also remove the red bow on the girl’s head - the picture will “dry” completely.
After this, it is worth once again evaluating the artist’s decisions - seemingly simple - which “charged” the painting with internal energy, movement and plasticity.
source
Here's another opinion...
Everyone can see something different in this picture.
Man with positive emotions can see positive meaning, and a person in a depressed mood will see something sinister in it.
This is also proven by the fact that a lot of caricatures and expressions of their vision of the picture were made of the picture.
Some people depict a nail on the ball instead of a girl, others a dog, or a bird, a naked woman - whatever.
There are even many sculptures dedicated to this painting. Many authors of sculptures wanted to embody a masterpiece of painting in stone or bronze, others in cartoon characters and caricatures.
The theme of the picture is in demand and continues to amaze people’s imagination.
According to official sources, the painting depicts the life of a traveling circus, a harlequin is sitting on a stone, and a girl from younger generation training for performances.
The man’s face is frowned and serious, he is thinking about something and is confident in himself. The girl is cheerful, carefree, but at the same time, it balances unsteadily on the ball.
In the picture, tenderness contrasts with rudeness, childish carelessness looks contrasting on the background
dejected life experience wisdom. Movement is shown against a background of calm.
There is also concern for the younger generation, and at the same time, the man feels uncertainty about his own future. The man is slightly inclined, which shows his sadness, at the same time, the girl’s entire figure tends upward, her hands are directed, palms towards the sky, as a symbol of the desire for a happy future.
The location of the acrobats is in an open area, somewhere in the distance you can see a woman with a child and a horse.
The expanses are endless, with several horizons in the distance, like a symbol of freedom. The picture contains deep meaning, where each detail is part of a single whole.
In 2012, a coin was issued in Russia, it depicted this particular painting by Pablo Picasso."
SEVEROV A, S,
Picasso's painting “Girl on a Ball” is one of the masterpieces of fine art. While praising the painting, researchers usually did not go beyond simply pointing out the contrast between the main figures, a fragile girl and a powerful athlete. Meanwhile, the amazing perfection and depth of these images allows us to speak about the significant, multifaceted content of the picture, which requires its new, more careful and versatile study. It is also necessary to reveal the figurative meaning of the comparison of two figures in the foreground and their relationship with the entire scene, as well as to trace the connection of the picture with other early works Picasso. This article is an attempt to fill this gap.
The painting was painted in 1905, during the figuratively speaking “pink period” of Picasso’s work. But the artist did not immediately come to its figurative and compositional solution. At first, the girl balanced on a stone, as can be seen in the pen drawing called “Equilibrist” (Paris). A closer depiction of the figures in the foreground, closer to the final version, is outlined in two drawings from 1905 (Paris, private collection), which are sketches for the Moscow painting. The head of the acrobat and the figure of the girl are developed in a sketch made on back side gouaches "Boy with a Dog" (1905). IN graphic work“Family of an acrobat”, made in the dry brush technique, the girl on the ball is already surrounded by many figures. It is suggested that Picasso at this time conceived two pairs large compositions about the life of actors on a journey: the film “Traveling Comedians” (1905, Washington, National Gallery) and "Comedians' Halt".
Traveling Comedians
Comedians' Rest
The plan for the second composition is known from sketches and preparatory work. A sketch from a museum in Baltimore depicts a camp of actors relaxing: women play with children or do housework, a horse can be seen near a circus wagon behind, and in the center an acrobat watches the balancing act of a girl on a ball. Picasso did not create such a complete composition, but almost all the motifs of the Moscow painting go back to the Baltimore sketch. It also shows a rest stop for artists in a deserted area: a girl balances on a ball, rehearsing one of the popular circus acts, while a powerful athlete rests nearby, watching her; in the distance a mother with children, a dog and a grazing white horse are visible.
The character of the landscape in the sketch and in our painting is also close. But the landscapes in “The Traveling Comedians” and “The Girl on the Ball” are even more similar, which also speaks of the unity of their original concept.
Probably conceived as preparatory work By the time of the unrealized "Comedians' Rest", the painting "Girl on a Ball" became the completed and one of the most perfect works of Picasso's rose period.
The Moscow painting reproduces, at first glance, just an episode from Everyday life traveling comedians. However, the impressive size, the majestic structure of the picture, in which the images are in silent presence, unusual place actions (desert plateau) and geometric “pedestals” of figures contribute to the elevation of images above everyday reality. The rehearsal begins to seem like a ritual event and acquires a mysterious significance.
Excluding the image from its previous, familiar environment and transferring it to a new, abstract environment - important feature works by Picasso (early). In the new context, the image takes on additional meanings, expresses more general concepts, often of a universally significant nature, revealing great questions of human destiny, life and death. This feature is explained, first of all, by Picasso’s inclination from the very first years of his work to allegorical thinking and symbolic images. At the same time, Picasso often used iconographic motifs of old art, primarily Christian. This is especially characteristic of paintings from the blue period, but is also found in the pink period, although with the advent of the theme of traveling comedians, such analogies gradually begin to disappear from the artist’s work.
The painting “Girl on a Ball” was painted on the very eve of the “first classical period"Picasso (second half of 1905 - mid-1906), and therefore in it one can expect the artist to appeal to a circle of people new to him classical ideas and associated iconographic motifs. In further analysis we will try to show that they are indeed present in it.
In disclosing the contents of this work big role plastic contrast plays. The comparison of two opposing qualities (weakness and strength, old age and youth, etc.) is an essential feature of the poetics of early Picasso. In “The Girl on the Ball”, the two poles around which the remaining moments of content are distributed are the concepts of femininity and masculinity, personified in the main figures: on one pole - youth, lightness, grace, fragility, mobility; on the other - maturity, strength, massiveness, stability, heaviness.
The girl is in complex movement. Raised arms seek support in the air, palms squeezing as if a second, invisible ball. The head with a pink flower in its hair gently bowed to the side, the eyes are half-closed, there is a wandering smile on the face, imperceptibly joy turns into sadness. The girl's balancing act doesn't seem to depend on her. human will, is subject to the random rotation of the ball, its position is precarious and unstable. Subordination to some extra-personal force, instability, unconsciousness of action, captivating and fragility - all these qualities of the image in question are different faces classical concept“fortune” (that is, luck, chance, fate). Balancing on a ball has been a symbol of Fortune since at least the Renaissance. This symbolized the impermanence of human happiness.
The athlete, in contrast to the girl, is in a strong position, unshakable external influences. His figure gives the impression of composure, confidence and strength, which is emphasized by the stable shape of the cube on which he sits. The athlete is shown thinking and inactive. With his physical appearance he can be reminiscent of the figures of young men from the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo, and with his spiritual concentration - “Melancholy” by Durer. He is not only a strongman, but also a thinker. The athlete, as it were, combines the virtues that individual can oppose the vicissitudes of fate: power, intelligence, courage, self-control. Finally, he is an artist. What we have here is the true realization of the classical ideal of Virtus, that is, Valor or Virtue.
The girl and the athlete are not only individually endowed with the traits of Fortune and Valor, but their relationship also resembles the relationship of Fortune and Valor. The contrast between Fortune and Valor, as between a girl and an athlete, is, first of all, a contrast between the random and the purposeful, the spontaneous and the reasonable. The contrast between the girl and the athlete can also be defined as “action without thought” and “thought without action.” Fortune and Valor have always been understood together, interconnected. All the best in life could be achieved by Valor, as Fortune’s companion, leader, and guide. According to the ideas of classical philosophy, in human life two principles fight, enter into an alliance or defeat each other: external, impersonal forces (fate, chance) and one’s own will, human dignity, reason. Resolving the contradiction between them was one of critical issues ancient literature. Cicero already stated: “Valor leads, Fortune follows.” Another formulation of the same thought, imbued with faith in human capabilities, are the words of Pliny the Elder before climbing Vesuvius: “Fortune favors the strong.”
There was no stable iconography of the joint image of Fortune and Valor in the art of the Renaissance and Modern times. However, there is a well-known Latin proverb that speaks of things strikingly reminiscent of our picture:
Sedes Fortunae rotunda,
Scdes Virtutis quadrata.
(i.e.: “the seat (seat) of Fortune is round, the seat of Valor is square”).
It's hard to admit that we're dealing with coincidence, explained by the simplicity of the motive. After all, if each of the two motifs of the picture, taken separately, the female figure on the ball and the male figure on the cube, are truly elementary, then their combination in one work is completely unique.
In 1905, the year to which the painting belongs, Picasso moved among experts classical literature, in whose work classicizing tendencies and images appeared just then. Together with Apollinaire, Picasso often went to listen to lectures by his close friend, the poet J. Moreas, the founder of the “Romanesque school,” which aimed to revive the Greco-Latin tradition as opposed to all modern trends and principles in art. Therefore, it is likely that the artist was aware of the basic ideas and sayings of classical authors about Fortune and Valor, including the Latin proverb cited above. All this testifies to Picasso’s undoubted use of classical ideas about Fortune and Valor and associated iconographic motifs. But Picasso’s painting “Girl on a Ball” is not a literal allegory of Fortune and Valor; its content is much broader. The content of the Moscow picture is revealed primarily from the analysis of the relationships of the characters, their figurative characteristics, as well as by considering the plastic features of the work.
The main figures of the picture not only oppose each other, but also form a single configuration on the plane, within which the shaky movement of the girl is balanced and calmed by the “squareness” of the athlete. Sliding, flowing lines are restrained by strict rectangular outlines, transform into them and, thanks to this, acquire stability. So, the girl’s leg visually rests on the acrobat’s knee. The athlete supports the girl not only compositionally, but also in meaning: he is her mentor, and the girl balances on the ball as if under his supervision; it is no coincidence that both are shown in communication, facing each other. At the same time, the athlete’s inactivity, his absorption in his thoughts, the tense turn of his figure in space clearly indicate that his internal energy restrained by weight own body. All this, layered on the initial impression of confidence and strength, gives rise to the feeling that the athlete also cannot exist without a girl, that he also needs her fragility, lightness, mobility, as a spiritual support.
The girl and the athlete cannot be perceived without each other; they cannot be imagined separately. But the main characters not only depend on each other, they also seem to be subject to the action of invisible, impersonal forces that put them in a forced position, in addition to of one's own will. These extra-personal forces act as fate, seeking to deprive a person of the right to be himself.
The theme of fate is not accidental in early work Picasso. A person’s opposition to fate, resistance to the forces trying to break him is characteristic of many works of the Blue Period. In the rose period, the images of traveling comedians also attracted the artist with the opportunity to again raise the theme of fate. Picasso reveals in the comedian the inconsistency of his position and the dualism of the actor and the human. Acting fetters the human, sometimes dresses him up in a jester's costume, obliges him to play a memorized role, regardless of human personality and individuality. The comedian does not have freedom of choice and is not free to go his own way, in the desired direction. For example, in the already mentioned painting “Traveling Comedians,” as well as in the sketch for it, it seems that some invisible force presses the actors to the ground and does not allow them to move: their legs are positioned in such a way that they resemble “ballet” positions. Comedians are definitely subject to a constant duty, a professional duty, but at the same time they resist their position - these are people who cannot be controlled like puppets by pulling strings.
In Picasso's rose period, the performance never takes place in the circus arena, but only in an abstract environment. The place and time of action are not localized or limited. The arena of action can extend to the entire world. The actor Picasso is non-individual and has many faces, he represents the image of all humanity, and is called upon to embody the contradictions of the world. Picasso accurately repeats the motto of Shakespeare’s theater “The whole world is acting.”
The girl and the athlete seem to be acting out a show about Fortune and Valor.
To understand the content of “Girls on a Ball,” you also need to return to the fact that in it the allegorical theme is projected onto the image of circus performers. In this painting, Picasso shows a mother and children in the background, with a dog wandering around and a horse grazing next to them. They are a necessary complement to the main figures; the artist shows a whole family of actors, a small, viable team leading a closed, independent existence. Picasso's actors are representatives of a special world, whose existence is unlike the life of urban inhabitants and carries a different content. Their life takes place in a deserted area, where there are no traces of modern civilization. In “Girl on a Ball,” as in other works on the theme of traveling comedians, Picasso strives to create a micro-society, a family of actors as a special world opposed modern artist society, built on completely different principles, the principles of humanity and art. Picasso himself felt a special closeness to actors, acrobats, and athletes. Thus, in the painting “The Traveling Comedians,” Picasso endowed Harlequin with self-portrait features, and gave the old clown the features of the face and figure of the poet G. Apollinaire. The artist also painted Self-Portrait in Harlequin Costume in a Cafe (1905, New York). This testifies to the importance Picasso attached and how highly he valued people in a profession close to him.
The person in Picasso's view of the rose period is an artist, creative person, a virtuoso of his craft, and it is his “virtuosity”, that is, high human qualities, allow him to resist fate. Creativity in a person helps him to enter into an alliance with luck and happiness.
In 1905, the outstanding painter Pablo Picasso painted his famous painting “Girl on a Ball”. Let's talk about this picture and some interesting points associated with it.
In my youth, after graduation art academy in Madrid, Picasso went to France, where he subsequently remained to live. In Paris, the young artist, thanks to his passion for the circus, found himself among circus performers, with whom he became close friends. Observing their specific way of life, Picasso quickly became inspired to create paintings.
One of the first circus-themed paintings was “Family of Acrobats.” For the first time, the figure of a teenager balancing on a ball appeared on it. There is an opinion that Picasso borrowed the idea of depicting a boy on a ball from the German sculpture Johannes Goetze, which he created in 1888. Maybe.
In the process of repeatedly redrawing The Acrobat's Family, Picasso finally decided to divide this painting into two separate ones. "The Acrobat's Family" in the final version was left without a boy on the ball, but a baboon was added. The boy turned into a girl and became central theme another painting - "Girl on a Ball".
What should you pay attention to when looking at this wonderful and famous painting? Let's name the most interesting moments.
1.
Girl pose
Despite the fact that the girl’s figure bends in search of balance, and her arms are gracefully and logically raised up, it is not difficult to notice that in general, standing on the part of the ball on which she stands, it is almost impossible to maintain balance and no amount of acrobatic bearing will help will help. From this we can conclude that during the creation of the painting, no one posed for Picasso.
2.
Ball
According to a number of art historians, the ball contains one of the embedded symbolisms of this painting. A fortune woman standing on a ball or wheel symbolizes her inconstancy, instability and capriciousness.
3.
Figure of a male acrobat
In the figure of the athlete, experts discerned the origins of the ideas of “cubism” in Picasso. Picasso, as you know, is considered one of the founders of this avant-garde movement of painting of the last century. And indeed, the features of the man’s figure are deliberately convex, the torso acquires the correct geometric shapes, which overall looks a little unnatural.
4.
Pink color in the picture
At the beginning of his creative path, Picasso, as stated above, often visited the circus. The lighting of the Parisian circus arena had a pinkish tint, so the artist formed a strong association between pink and everything related to the circus theme. The color pink dominates all of Picasso's paintings dedicated to the circus or circus performers.
5.
Background of the painting
If you try to guess the place to which the plot of the picture relates, it is more likely to be Spain than France. For Spain in to a greater extent The area is characterized by a rocky and hilly landscape with sparse vegetation. In addition, in the background you can see a horse, which was used by traveling performers to move to a new place and in their circus acts. Picasso was able to see traveling artists in his youth, when he was still living in Spain. 
6.
Flower
A flower is visible on the girl's head. Picasso depicted it as fuzzy, as if dissolving against the general background - in this we can also read symbolism, which tells us that beauty is fleeting, vulnerable and not eternal. There is another version: Picasso painted a flower to intuitively show the viewer the entry point of the balance axis, so that the girl would be perceived as a more stable object.
7.
Geometry
And yet, the main symbolism in the picture is visible in the contrast of geometric figures - a stable cube on which a textured athlete sits, and a ball on which a fragile girl balances. In the future, these, as well as others geometric figures will become integral part Picasso's creativity. The basis of the innovative direction in painting is cubism.
The graceful, miniature “girl on a ball” in Pablo Picasso’s painting was not originally a girl at all
Painting “Girl on a Ball”
Oil on canvas, 147 x 95 cm
Year of creation: 1905
Now stored in State Museum fine arts named after A.S. Pushkin in Moscow
In Montmartre, in the abode of the poor and bohemians, the Spaniard Pablo Picasso felt among kindred souls. He finally moved to Paris in 1904 and spent several times a week at Medrano’s circus, whose name was given by the city’s favorite clown, Jerome Medrano, a compatriot of the artist. Picasso became friends with the troupe's artists. Sometimes he was mistaken for an immigrant acrobat, so Picasso became a part of the circus community. Then he began to paint a large picture about the life of artists. Among the heroes of the canvas were a child acrobat on a ball and an older comrade watching him. However, during the process of work, the idea changed radically: according to X-ray studies carried out in 1980, the artist completely rewrote the painting several times. In the resulting painting, “Family of Acrobats,” the teenager on the ball is no longer present. The artist turned the episode that remained in the sketches into another smaller painting - “Girl on a Ball.” According to the British art critic John Richardson, who knew Picasso, the artist wrote it on the back of a painted over male portrait from saving money by spending on canvas and paints for “Family of Acrobats.”
In Russia, “The Girl on the Ball” has become much more popular than the large painting since it was purchased in 1913 by philanthropist Ivan Morozov and ended up in Moscow. In Novorossiysk in 2006, a monument was erected to the acrobat from Picasso’s masterpiece.
Right: A boy balancing on a ball. Johannes Goetz. 1888
1 Girl. The teenager’s pose is unlikely to have been drawn from life: even an experienced acrobat could not hold this position for more than a couple of seconds. John Richardson saw the artist's source of inspiration in the bronze figurine "Boy Balancing on a Ball", created by Johannes Goetz in 1888. And in the first sketches of this plot, Picasso, according to Richardson, had not a girl, but a boy.
2 Ball. Leading Researcher Hermitage Alexander Babin suggested that the ball on which the acrobat balances is, according to Picasso’s plan, the pedestal of the goddess of fate. Fortune was traditionally depicted standing on a ball or wheel, symbolizing the impermanence of human happiness.
3 Athlete. Richardson wrote that Picasso was probably posed by a friend from Medrano's circus. The artist made the figure of the strong man deliberately geometric, anticipating a new direction - cubism, of which he soon became one of the founders.
4 Pink. The period from the end of 1904 to 1906 in Picasso’s work is conventionally called “circus” or “pink”. American specialist in 20th century art E.A. Carmine explained the artist’s passion for this color by the fact that the dome in the Medrano circus was pink.
5 Landscape. Art critic Anatoly Podoksik believed that the area in the background resembles the mountainous Spanish landscape. Picasso depicted not artists hired for a stationary circus, but part of a traveling troupe, which he saw in his childhood in his homeland.
6 Flower. In this context, the flower with its short-lived beauty is a symbol of fleetingness, the brevity of existence.
7 Horse.
In those days, the main animal in the life of circus performers. Horses pulled wagons of traveling performers; riders' acts were necessarily included in the program of stationary circuses.
8 Family.
Picasso depicted circus performers in everyday life, with children more often than in the arena. In his paintings, art critic Nina Dmitrieva noted, the troupe - perfect model families: artists stick together in a world where, like other bohemians, they are considered marginal.
9 Cube. Alexander Babin, citing a Latin proverb Sedes Fortunae rotunda, sedes Virtutis quadrata(“The Throne of Fortune is round, but Valor is square”), wrote that a static cube in in this case serves as a pedestal for the allegory of Valor, in contrast to Fortune on an unstable ball.
Artist
Pablo Picasso
1881
- was born in the Spanish city of Malaga in the family of an artist.
1895
- entered the Barcelona School of Arts and Crafts.
1897–1898
- studied at Royal Academy Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid.
1904
- moved to France.
1907
- created the painting “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”, in which there was a turn towards cubism and because of which there were rumors that the artist had gone crazy.
1918–1955
- was married to Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova. The marriage produced a son, Paulo (Paul).
1927–1939
- an affair with Marie-Therese Walter, the daughter of a milliner. The lovers had a daughter, Maya.
1937
- wrote "Guernica", one of the most famous anti-war paintings in the world.
1944–1953
- an affair with the artist Françoise Gilot, who bore him a son, Claude, and a daughter, Paloma.
1961
- married Jacqueline Rock.
1973
- died of pulmonary edema at his villa Notre-Dame de Vie in Mougins, France.
Illustrations: Alamy / Legion-media, AKG / East News, National Gallery of Art