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Pablo Picasso. Woman Weeping, 1937. Penrose Collection, London |
I moved the sprinkler from the ivy to the grass, and settled in the hammock with a giant book. Picasso. The name reminded me of piccolo. The book was full of paintings of people, but all stretched out, with the faces rearranged. On page 107 was a picture of a crazy woman. She wore a crumpled red hat with a blue flower, and her hair hung in long purple and green ropes behind petals for ears. Her skin glowed the bright yellow-green of honeysuckles where the blossom joins the stem, but her nose sat crooked and her big mouth was a bunch of angles. Her fingers clutched at her teeth. She looked about to explode. Under it was printed, "'Woman Weeping,' oil, 1937."
Her mouth reminded me of Miss Haskin. I wanted to bring it home to show Gramp but I thought it might make him not like her. His paintings weren't like that at all. He only painted countryside and mountains that didn't make the world so jangled.