The Blue Friend - An Artist's Support

At a cafe in Barcelona, where artists and poets collected and the air was rich with genius, two young

men happened to sit at the same table, and began a friendship that would last a lifetime. However,

someone should’ve read the fine print, because it only lasted one lifetime. Carles Casagemas was

nineteen years old and, like any young man who’d earned any lick of praise, he carried himself like

he was on top of the world. His father was a composer, so he was already destined for an artistic

lifestyle. A poet, painter, and student, he had already created some haunting and gorgeous works,

and had yet to suffer the fatal falls of life. He quite liked the cafe Els Quatre Gats. The owners

recognized him, and he always felt like he belonged. Also, it was the beginning of a new century;

how could he not be excited?

There was another man who walked into that cafe that was far less confident. The eighteen year old

had already done quite a lot. He’d undergone formal training, and, though he had been baptized with

twenty names of various saints and relatives, he was finally carving one out for himself: Pablo

Picasso.

He probably wouldn’t’ve sat next to anyone, as he didn’t like to intrude, but Carles looked so excited

to see him. When they began talking, it was as if they’d known each other for years. They talked

about how excited they were to live through a new age of art, neither knowing that one of them

would be the forefather and poster boy for that new age. Before long, the two were living together in

Barcelona.

As Casagemas was always excited for a new opportunity, he understandably loved New Years. The

chance to completely reinvent yourself with walls to contain you. So, in early 1901, Picasso and

Casagemas moved to Paris. They were beyond elated to be in the “real” art world. They were finally

“real” adults. Both boys were ready to find a muse. And Carles thought he had found that in

Germaine Pichot, a french prostitute. Those prostitutes, who were so eager to give out love, were

often poison to lost artists. Van Gogh lived with a prostitute for a year and, when he cut off his

earlobe, gave it to a different prostitute. Carles was head over heels, and wanted nothing but

Madame Pichot. Unfortunately, she did not feel the same way. The young man had never felt such a loss.

He had a whole plan for his life with Germaine and couldn’t imagine anything else. He felt so

lost and so alone and, though his friend Pablo was within arm’s reach, he was focused on other things.

Unable to process this loss and spiraling into a deep depression extremely quickly, Carles felt that

life, future, and beauty had abandoned him, and he had no hope for living. On February 17, at the age of twenty, he shot himself in the head. To say Picasso was distraught would be a gross understatement. He, too, had yet to deal with deep adult emotions, and, had everything gone his way, he would’ve been able to wait a little longer. He dealt with it the only way he knew how to: he painted. He’d finally found his muse. He couldn’t go back to bright colors. He saw everything through the thick haze of grief. It was quite opposite to La Vie en Rose they were expecting in Paris; c’est La Vie en Bleu. Picasso’s blue period, arguably for what he

is most famous, was the result of the loss of his future with his best friend, but, unlike that friend, he pushed on.

Picasso would live many lives. He would have a rivalry and friendship with Henry Matisse, he would be detained in suspect of stealing the Mona Lisa, he would become one of the most famous artists of the twentieth century. He would find new muses in his two wives, and learn to confront complex emotions and move forward. He would die an old man at the age of 91, satisfied as he could be with the life he had lived. And he had to all of this without the person that he thought had made a promise to him, in a cafe in Barcelona, at the start of a new century.