To summarize the results of our comparison between Picasso as a phenomenon and that
of the more usual classical artist, we have said that all painters paint, that is to say they admit
the use of pictorial language and consequently they imitate; and it is by means of this imitation
that they form themselves. The classical painters always remain painters and always use the
plastic language of art. Picasso, on the other hand, in his choice and variety of plastic exercises
does not produce the figure of an artist endowed with unity; he suggests an artist who is a stranger
to art and who, if he were to
reconstruct his unity, would do
so outside the plastic domain.
Unlike the classical artist, who
employs his humble and learned
economy to construct his person-
ality, Picasso shows his intellec-
tual heroism in never reconstruc-
ting himself, forgetting himself
rather in every act; Picasso would
be ready never to appear himself.
He has made it his object never
to impose his personality.

THREE GRACES.
Photo Rosenberg.

Does not this will to dis-
appear conceal extraordinary
pride ? We return to our suspi-
cion that this self, which Picasso
reserves with so much jealousy
and disdainful irony, could be
reconstructed outside the domain
of painting, that is to say not in
the language with which he has
decided to have intercourse with
other men. Here we should
have to violate the domain of a
rather satanic mystic in the dark-
est retreat of his mental activity,
where he deals only with himself.
In his refusal to recognize himself,
Picasso approaches another of
his illustrious contemporaries:
M. Teste.

His relations with paint-
ing would then appear to be
sudden, transitory actions, like
those of Don Juan who, while
leading a pleasant everyday life
among his friends, travelling, at

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