A day with Pablo Picasso in Málaga

March 24, 2022

The first task today was to assemble the bicycles, a job that goes quite quickly these days. Then we rode out to the larger Decathlon where I was able to buy a gas cylinder. Due to the transport strike, the mobile phone shops at the large shopping mall in which the Decathlon was located were also without smaller data packages - maybe next week was all they could offer.

The real target for today was Pablo Picasso. He was born about two hundred meters away from our digs and the city has a great museum of his works that gives one a feeling of his life and his views on life and art. What follows is too many photos of some of the works in the museum but they are the ones that had my attention so they are an illustration of the best part of my day.

Leigh poses outside Picasso's childhood home in the manner of his muse later in life, Françoise Gilot. Apparantly he asked her to pose nude standing erect with her arms hanging at her sides. After looking at her for a few minutes he told her to get dressed and she wouldn't have to pose again because he had seen what he was going to paint.

I had a chance to sit next to the Master. I much prefer to cycle in sandals but the cold weather at the start of this tour means I will have to cycle in my trail shoes. The Master is obviously less affected by the bad weather.

This is a tapestry that was a ripoff of one of his famous works, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon". Picasso hung it in his studio and loved it because the colours were all different to what he had painted. You can see the original colours here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4c/Les_Demoiselles_d%27Avignon.jpg/350px-Les_Demoiselles_d%27Avignon.jpg

I loved the three studies of a guitar that follow.

The pictures and the sculpture preceding this one were around the time of the Spanish Civil War and while not of the war, relate to its violence, something quite topical. Many of them refer to the Greek play Lysistrata written by Arisophanes in 411 BC in which women stage a sex strike to force men to stop the Peloponnesian War. This one is entitled "The Rape".

The painting of Françoise Gilot with her arms hanging by her sides.

Boy with Spade, painted when he was almost ninety.

Then we strolled around to the Cathedral. Part of this tour is a Pilgrimage so it was something we needed to do.

Outside the Cathedral stood this attractive building.

The weather for tomorrow looks like it will be the worst of the week but it improves after that. The forecast is for lots of rain and a strong headwind. As a result, we have booked a room just twelve kilometers down the coast and the real tour will only start on Saturday.

Today's ride: 5 km (3 miles)
Total: 5 km (3 miles)

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