Picasso and sadism

I was going through a few drafts and located this writing of mine from some time ago. I'm not sure why I didn't publish it as it's rather interesting. Hope you agree:

 Francoise Gilot was unwilling to talk about her years with Picasso until Janet Hawley, an Australian journalist, mentions towards the end of her telephone conversation requesting an interview that Gilot had spoken at the 1984 Adelaide Festival Writers' Week. One thing led to another and she was ultimately granted some hours with her. The article she wrote about her time with Gilot fascinated me.

She was, she says, the only one of Picasso's women who was submissive. "He wanted me to be submissive, like the other women, but I was never submissive." "Why do you always contradict me?" he wanted to know of her. Her answer was, "Because we have a dialogue, not a monologue."

Gilot's take on women is refreshingly outspoken: "Many women who are very feminine have a masochistic streak to them, so it was perfect for Picasso with the women who came before me - the sadist with the masochist. But I was not a masochist or a sadist: I was not playing that game!"

Picasso boasted to Gilot apparently that he enjoyed making the people who loved him suffer. He told her that he was nasty to people he loved. She believes that he was testing their affection for him. "Every day he had to go into some combat and win."

Olga's intelligence shines with every remark she makes. She seems to have the most amazing insight that I feel I want to make note of her observations for myself in this record.

"Picasso's idea of love was mostly physical and possessing, not giving. At the same time, his good side was so intelligent that when you were with him...it was often so astonishing that you felt you were watching a miracle. That is what he gave. If you could appreciate that, that is what you got."

But her admiration for him did not cloud her awareness of his flaws.

"...he always had supreme anxiety, wanting to find a new truth...Picasso always felt alone, in peril..."

She recognizes too that she must not have been easy for him.

"Pablo painted a series of Middle Ages knights in armor, with thin waists on horseback - they're me. He complained I never took my armor off. "Yes, she replied. "I did not want to be killed."

But of all the comments she made in that interview and reported in Janet Hawley's wonderful article it was this one that resonated like a crystal clear bell:

"I knew Picasso's reputation with women and that moving in with him could be a catastrophe - but I decided it was a catastrophe I didn't want to miss."

Francoise Gilot may not have been a submissive or a masochist in the strict sense of the word, but she became entranced by Picasso and only left him ten years later when his behavior "became increasingly unfair and cruel". "Picasso was a god and my children and I were mere human beings." 

Dominant men, it seems to me so often are mercurial; not at all easy souls to be around and yet as women with submissive qualities, we gravitate towards such men. As difficult as they can be, some of us (and I certainly put myself in that category) yearn for their company.

'When God wants to punish you he answers your prayers.'