English Tutor/Tuition Bolton Manchester: Ray Bradbury’s Picasso summer! (FOUR)

Ray Bradbury knows the importance of wanting. In his story ‘The Picasso summer’ his protagonist George Smith adores Picasso. He ‘loved art more than life itself.’  George dreams of even buying a Picasso picture. He lands in Biarritz with his wife, after hearing the rumour that Picasso is staying only a few miles down the coast. The very name ‘Picasso’ evokes awe for George and the story becomes a ‘stage’ for the brief meeting of George with his god, Picasso. Picasso is on the beach, idly drawing with a popsicle stick, creating pictures that can only last as long as the tide stays out. And only George is there to witness these transient images of Picasso: a gift one feels for George’s devotion!

The story is ended perfectly too,  privileging the reader’s knowledge with that of George in a private epiphany, as Picasso’s impromptu pictures are  washed away . but George has ‘seen’ his god and is fulfilled.

”Just the tide,’ he said after a while, sitting there, his eyes still shut. ”Just the tide coming in.” . 

The stranger stood alone. Glancing about, he saw his aloneness, saw the waters of the lovely bay, saw the sun sliding down the late colors of the day, and then, half turning, spied a small wooden object on the sand. It was no more than the slender stick from a lime ice cream delicacy long since melted away. Smiling, he picked the stick up. With another glance around to reinsure his solitude, the man stooped again and, holding the stick gently, with light sweeps of his hand began to do the one thing in all the world he knew best how to do.

He began to draw incredible figures along the sand.

He sketched one figure and then moved over and, still looking down, completely focused on his work now, drew a second and a third figure, and after that a fourth and a fifth and a sixth.

George Smith, printing the shore line with his feet, gazed here, gazed there, and then saw the man ahead. George Smith, drawing nearer, saw that the man, deeply tanned, was bending down. Nearer yet, and it was obvious what the man was up to, George Smith chuckled. Of course . . . Alone on the beach this man how old? Sixty-five? Seventy? — was scribbling and doodling away. How the sand flew! How the wild portraits flung themselves out there on the shore!

What a wonderful ‘what if ‘story?

And the tide carrying away the spontaneous sand doodlings of Picasso is  pure elegy in motion!

GENIUS!