Antibes. and more Picasso. 11 August.

From Vallauris, we took a ride to Antibes, where there is another Picasso museum. The water in Antibes was so beautiful, and many of the key sites were right along the coast, which made for a picturesque walk. However, before making it to the castle that held the Picasso museum, we had to find a parking space. By a certain alignment in the cosmos, we happened to park right near a home that was distinguished by a plaque that read that the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis had lived and worked there. 

This was an amazing fortune for me because Kazantzakis is my favorite modern Greek writer. I was reminded that just before turning into the town of Antibes, we saw a place called the Mediateque Albert Camus (because we had already scheduled certain things to see, we could not detour there to find out what this place was named after my favorite French writer). It so happens that Camus won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957, and Kazantzakis was second in that voting. Later that year, as Kazantzakis lie on his deathbed (the story so goes), Camus got a message to the dying Greek writer that he believed that Kazantzakis actually deserved the prize, and not himself. 

I only tell this story to say that I love aimlessly exploring foreign towns so that I can discover happy accidents like this that are impossible to plan for. 

The Picasso museum in Antibes is housed in an old castle that had a wonderful view of the sea, and a decent sized collection of works from the period from the 50s and 60s. These works seem very much informed by his simplistic drawings, which utilize the most fundamental aspect of visual art: the line. 

(not my photo of a Picasso painting at Antibes.)

There was also a larger collection of a series of ceramic plates that Picasso created while living here. Nice enough. However, it reminds me that any decent modern art museum has a couple of Picasso works, usually from this later period in his career. 

(not my photo of a bunch of plates by Picasso.)

This also reminds me that even among the greatest of artists in history, there are very few who generated genius masterpieces throughout a long career. Picasso is not one of them. (I think Bach and Michelangelo are two of these rarified few.) As great as these later line-based works are, in my estimation these lack the genius that his earlier works of the Rose, Blue, and Cubist periods. It seems that by this point in his career, he was already regarded as the greatest living artist, so he continued to create works and make money from them, resulting in his works being in many major, medium, and minor sized museums. Indeed, some of these plates seem so rushed that I wonder if Picasso wished that he had access to certain industrial technology, similar to how Warhol used screen printing technology a decade or two later. (Actually, this might be the element of genius in Warhol that I have been searching to discover for so many years; after all, if there is technology to be used, why not use it? In fact, it is postulated that Vermeer may have used an intricate machine to help him accomplish his masterpieces.) Perhaps that estimation of Picasso is a bit harsh, as there are many nice things about these works; to be sure, he didn't stoop to the level of Salvador Dali in the same era, who merely signed blank pieces of paper, pieces of paper which were lucky if his own works should appear. 

After the Picasso castle, we went to a wonderful seafood place for lunch called Mer-Sea. Of course, this is a fun pun. "Mer" is the French word for "sea." So it appears that they are merely placing the French version of the word next to the English version of the word. However, taken together, the sound produced by speaking "Mer-Sea" also sounds like the French word "Merci," meaning "thank you," which all good restauranteurs say out of gratitude for their customers. I like this kind of creativity and wit in places. By the way, the cod fish plate with great garnishes I ate was delicious. The fish was not overwhelemed by excessive oil, and the garnishes were cooked to perfectly compiment the focus of the dish. What else can I say except that all the food that I eat here in Cote d'Azur is great. 

Before leaving Antibes, we drove around the coast, and into Cap-Antibes (the cape, or promontory of Antibes), which was beautiful. It seems to be a nice feature of French law that all beaches are to remain open to the public. That means that no matter how ritzy and rich some area is, anyone can go there to enjoy the beach, and no matter how wealthy some hotel might be, it cannot claim exclusive access to the beach. I wish other places around the world implemented similar laws.