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Fame and War are two unsettling things. On Picasso both had lasting effects which critics of the future will have to reckon with in estimating his work. It is significant that his first "collages," paste-jobs of paper and other textures, were not intended as pictures but as models for pictures. Dealers and dilettante admirers insisted that they were wonderful, and Picasso shrugged off the whole matter. The element of nose-thumbing and Dada (organized senselessness) in his later work has probably the same genesis.
Class & Classical. There is, in fact, reason in the theory that losing his direction during the War and being flattered by a lot of fancy literary people, Picasso has found since little to do but pull rabbits out of his hat for easy applause—and easy money. The alternate theory is that this tough, unschooled, brilliant little man has responded subtly to the intellectual insights and disorders of his time, has created in paint their diverse and furious images. Unbiased observers think both theories are partly true.
In 1917 three absolutely last-word fashionables—Musician Erik Satie, Poet Jean ("Birdcatcher") Cocteau and Ballet Impresario Sergei Diaghilev—spirited Picasso out of the dumps and off to Italy to paint decor for a ballet, Parade. It has never been publicly known that Picasso not only did the cubist decor for this extravaganza but rewrote Cocteau's book. In Rome he fell in love with a minor member of the Diaghilev ballet, Olga Koklova, and found himself faced with the unusual demand for a Russian-Orthodox Church marriage. In 1918 the marriage took place in Paris, and the Picassos moved into the two top floors of a heavy, expensive, Second Empire house in the Rue La Boétie.
An impeccable conventional draftsman when he wanted to be, Picasso produced in the next period a number of line drawings of Ingres-like delicacy, including several of his wife. The "classic" pictures of these years (1918-25) were really of several kinds: monumental, massive giantesses which to some critics symbolize the all-maternal space of the universe; softly bulky, grand but graceful human figures that recall such Italian masters as Paolo Veronese; out-and-out Greco-Romanesque figure compositions in various stages of archaism, action and distortion. His production was enormous. At Gisors, about 35 miles from P'aris, he bought a chateau.
Business. Estimates of the number of paintings Picasso has produced vary from 1,200 to 10,000. Best guess is somewhere between 3,000 and 4,500. Since Rubens, with a whole "factory" of apprentices, turned out less than 3,000, it is likely that Picasso has been the most prolific first-rater who ever lived. In any logical system of supply and demand, a Picasso ought to be cheap. But Picassos are notoriously not cheap, and for this there are two explanations.