Art and Poetry - Picasso - Prévert

Jacques Prévert wrote "Promenade de Picasso" in 1949, a poem which has its place in his collection Paroles and which expresses the poet's feelings towards art.

Pablo Picasso, “Apple”, 1918.

On a very round real porcelain plate
an apple poses
Face to face with her
a painter of reality
tries in vain to paint
the apple as it is
but
She is not going easy
Apple
she has her say
and several tricks in his apple bag
Apple
and here it turns
on a real plate
sneakily on herself
gently without moving
and like a Duke of Guise who disguises himself as a gaslight
because in spite of himself we want to paint the portrait
the apple disguises itself as a beautiful noise in disguise
and it is then
that the painter of reality
begins to realize
that all appearances of the apple are against him
And
like the poor wretch
like the poor needy person who suddenly finds himself at the mercy of any beneficent and charitable and formidable association of beneficence of charity and formidableness
the unfortunate painter of reality
suddenly finds himself the sad prey
of an innumerable crowd of associations of ideas
And the apple when turning evokes the apple tree
the terrestrial Paradise and Eve and then Adam
the watering can the espalier Parmentier the staircase
Canada the Hesperides Normandy the Reinette and the Api
the snake of Jeu de Paume the oath of Apple Juice
and original sin
and the origins of art
and Switzerland with William Tell
and even Isaac Newton
several times awarded at the Universal Gravitation Exhibition
and the dazed painter loses sight of his model
and falls asleep
It was then that Picasso
who passed by there as he passes everywhere
every day like at home
sees the apple and the plate and the sleeping painter
What an idea to paint an apple
said Picasso
and Picasso eats the apple
and the apple says thank you
and Picasso breaks the plate
and leaves smiling
and the painter torn from his dreams
like a tooth
finds himself all alone in front of his unfinished canvas
with in the middle of his broken dishes
the terrifying glitches of reality.

Pablo Picasso “Still Life With Three Apples”, 1949

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