MICROSTORY OF ART

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Dedicated to Punctuality

(Picture: design by Hans Hilfiker; animation by Hk kng)

(25.2.2023) If punctuality is the politeness of kings, Pablo Picasso was not a king. At least not at one occasion, in November 1937, when he was supposed to pay a visit to Paul Klee at Kistlerweg 6, Berne, Switzerland. At 4 pm Picasso was supposed to meet Klee, but arrived roughly 2 hours late, at about 6 pm, and very deliberately so. – And why was that, and how did Picasso manage to do that, and to what effect? The answers will be given below. Because, as anthropologist know, punctuality is actually not something to play with, it is dangerous to play with punctuality, except perhaps, if you are Picasso (or do it as elegantly as a Swiss station clock, practicing the so-called ›minute jump‹ – as in the animation).

1) On Possible Effects Due to Not Being On Time in Switzerland

Picasso’s theatrical not-being-on-time in a culture, the culture of the German-speaking part of Switzerland, a culture which is rather known to be rigid as to punctuality, had various effects. First of all: Klee was visibly angry, when, two hours late, Picasso arrived with Bernhard Geiser (who was the one to transmit a very detailed report on that one afternoon and early evening; see literature below).
But also secondary effects have to be taken into account. Klee had already changed his clothes from, probably, rather formally, to very casual – a first indication that he had not expected Picasso to come at all anymore, which is a hypothesis that can be confirmed by another observation Geiser made, namely the observation that Klee seemed to have eaten the cake which the Klees had meant to offer to their guests. And if one is only a little familiar with the nature and the character of Picasso, one might think here immediately that Picasso had timed his visit unconventionally, if one may say so, to reach exactly such effects, since Picasso did love such comedy of everyday-life, such ravishing small-scale human comedy.
Another secondary effect might have been that Klee’s wife, a pianist, attempted to save the evening by playing Bach for their guests. And here, knowing the nature and the character of Picasso, one has to say that Picasso had neither interest for classical music, nor did he have the patience to listen to classical music (to the chagrin of his second wife Jacqueline), and certainly playing Bach was, in view of Picasso’s nature, the worst choice of all. But the playing of Bach, in the framework of this story, is still an important element, because this element can be handled as a clue as to what the theatrical not-being-on-time, on 28 November 1937, was all about. Knowing that he was to meet Klee at 4 pm, and that another host was to pick him up at 7 pm, Picasso obviously had wanted to shorten the time he was supposed to spend with Klee, without formally having to cancel the visit (which, perhaps, had been interpreted by Klee as being more polite than what Picasso actually did). And before we arrive at the question of why Picasso did want to shorten the visit, and why it is interesting to know about this episode, we have to study the strategies Picasso used to waste as much time as possible – of the time he actually had been meant to spend with Klee.

Something to waste time with (picture: bhm.ch)

2) On How to Waste Time (and Managing to Be Late)

Geiser had taken Picasso into the Historical Museum at Berne (see picture on the left), and this idea worked as an obvious invitation to Picasso to spend time with looking at things, whether he actually was interested in these things or not. The museum owns parts of the so-called ›Burgunderbeute‹, a millefleur tapestry, for example, related to the dukes of Burgundy. And Picasso, in view of Geiser, developed also a sudden and seemingly very intense interest in traditional Swiss houses. But actually a game between Picasso and Geiser unfolded, a game with Geiser realizing to some degree that Picasso was not inclined to meet with Klee yet, with Geiser pressuring Picasso more and more to act according to the expectations as to punctuality in Switzerland, and if you are invited for coffee and cake at a given time, you are not supposed to play around (the Swiss dialect has nice idioms for such behaviour), taking the risk of being late and to offend some host.
But this was exactly what Picasso was doing, and the more Geiser was pressuring him, the more complex Picasso's manoeuvers became. His manoeuvers as to how to get to Klee (by walking, by cab?), and his manoeuvers of suddenly buying something to eat, and of suddenly wanting to spend some time in a restaurant, until the wanted result was reached: the time he had to spend with Klee had drastically diminished, and Klee, perhaps as expected, perhaps not, was angry (and seems to have blamed Geiser initially, for Picasso being late).
But on some level the evening resulted in Klee and Picasso sitting peacefully together, if rather silently, but in mutual respect as artists. As artists which, perhaps (but this is the question) had not terribly much in common, but could, on a level of artistic techniques still have some kind of conversation on some level.

Reconstruction of a historical house (picture: Sailko)

3) On the Importance to Know Why Picasso, in 1937, Wasted Roughly Two Hours of Time

If one wants to know, in 2023, who Pablo Picasso was, it is not the worst choice to ask what he was not. And this is the heart of the matter of the episode we discuss here. One Picasso biographer (Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington) has spoken of ›no bridge having existed between the two worlds of these artists‹ (see F I, 544). And this is the question: was Klee everything Picasso was not? If this is so, we would have found the perfect other of Picasso, and we might construct an image of Klee being the perfect other of Picasso. But certainly it is not that easy. If Picasso found Klee, occasionally, ›trop littéraire‹, one has to remind that Picasso was ›littéraire‹ too, and very often so. His painter-and-model series go back, the whole ›genre‹ goes back, for example, largely to Balzac, to being invited to illustrate Balzac, but certainly Klee was a more introspective, more intellectual, more musical painter, and masculine expression, size and scope, and brutal extrovertedness (as to inner personal conflict), might not have mattered for Klee as much as it did matter for Picasso.
If Picasso had aimed at shortening the time he had to spend with Klee in 1937, it might have been due to Picasso sensing that he had not that much in common with Klee, while on the other hand he might have sensed that still Klee was an important artist, despite his being more intellectual and not being interested in muscles, size, and aggressive extroverted peinture, and all of this might have stimulated in Picasso a feeling of akwardness, of not being drawn to Klee, and still Picasso, although it is not very widely known today, was also committed to an ideal of politeness, and not always, but very often he was, for example when welcoming annoying visitors, committed to his ideal of politeness, despite wanting to throw someone out. His ideal of politeness, thus, would have demanded him to be punctual, when paying a visit to Klee, but humans are complicated and do not act according to single ideals only and all of the time. Which resulted in a bittersweet comedy here, in view of Klee becoming indeed angry, but remaining, all in all very dignified, and with, actually, Picasso staging the complicated comedy of 28 November 1937, and this due to his weaknesses and strengths, due to his nature and his character, and all in the framework of a culture, which was just the right setting to have such comedy of deliberately not-being-on-time being staged and played out. To the effect that, in hindsight, anyone interested in Picasso and who he was and who he was not (for example not a player of, or a listener to Bach), might have something to think about.

Further Reading:
Lothar Lang (ed.), Das Genie lässt bitten. Erinnerungen an Picasso, Lipsia 1987 [with the account by Bernhard Geiser, pp. 76-82]

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