Pablo Picasso is well known for his paintings and his artistic talents. But, he was also one of the 20th century’s most notorious atheists. Despite this, there is one theme that seems to show a different side to him. He drew or painted around 50 scenes of the Crucifixion. This was not much for a man who created more than 20,000 works during his lifetime. The interesting fact is that there are no other religious themes rather than the Crucifix. The only exception is one of his earliest paintings: a young girl – may be his sister – at her First Holy Communion. Otherwise, it’s all about the culmination of Christ’s Passion.
Was that a simple turning by Picasso to Calvary? Throughout his life he proclaimed himself to be an atheist. The label stuck so well, he was denied the religious commissions that Matisse managed to secure. One rejection stated that he was a “Communist artist and enemy of God.”
His religious awakening was caused by a work of art in 1932. In 1932, he visited Switzerland and probably went to northeastern France to look at the Isenheim altarpiece. There was a painting by Matthias Gruenewald in the early 16th century. It is as raw a piece of imagery as can be imagined, even of a work depicting the Crucifixion. Picasso found in it all the human savagery and despair that he was always seeking out. Did he find any sense of redemption, though?
The numerous sketches he produced afterward were different from the luridly colored Crucifixion he painted two years earlier. Their monochrome fragmentation led the way to his famous Guernica painting. The drawings appear filled with a new passion, with a small ‘p.’ If they were a small plea from his soul for more spirituality in his work, it was a very private gesture.
The only other indication that Picasso wished to be accepted as a Catholic once again is the testimony of a priest many years later. At the age of 77, Picasso told the priest he wanted to have a church wedding and to be buried in Malaga Cathedral. Neither of these happened.
At least we still have his Crucifixion drawings and the hope that he might have been a less selfish man than he portrayed himself as being.