6 - CUBISM. — JACOB (Max). Signed autograph letter to Jean Cassou, WITH ORIGINAL SKETCH. Pension Ty-mad in Tréboul [near Douarnenez, in Finistère], July 28, 1930. One folio page, envelope preserved.

CUBISM. — JACOB (Max). Signed autograph letter to Jean Cassou, WITH ORIGINAL SKETCH. Pension Ty-mad in Tréboul [near Douarnenez, in Finistère], July 28, 1930. One folio page, envelope preserved. “Dear Jean, congratulations and thank you for the book on Marcoussis and for never forgetting me [Jean Cassou had just published a monograph with Gallimard on the Cubist painter and printmaker Ludwik Markus, known as Louis Marcoussis]. No mathematician has contributed to Cubism, and Apollinaire was just as surprised as I was by its emergence. Cubism was born one morning—or rather, one evening. Apollinaire, Picasso, and I were having dinner at Matisse’s, where he showed us A BLACK STATUETTE. PICASSO LOOKED AT IT FOR A LONG TIME, AND THE NEXT DAY WHEN I ARRIVED AT 13 RUE RAVIGNAN, I FOUND LARGE SHEETS OF PAPER ON THE FLOOR—LINE DRAWINGS OF THE BLACK STATUETTE. From that day on, Picasso withdrew into meditation and silence: “Go have some fun,” he would say to Apollinaire and me. AT THAT TIME, HE WAS DEDICATED TO DRAWING ANIMALS IN A SINGLE CONTINUOUS LINE without lifting his pencil from the paper [Max Jacob sketched the wire-frame silhouette of a bird here]. Of course, Apollinaire embellished this new creation with beautiful prose, just as he had done with the harlequins. I believe this took place in 1906. Picasso had students in the years that followed: the first was Braque [Max Jacob wrote and then crossed out: “who would later renounce his master”]. Princet was merely an admirer, like me, who has never understood a thing about anything that has happened since Corot [Maurice Princet, known as the “mathematician of Cubism,” had introduced the painters of the Bateau-Lavoir to non-Euclidean geometry]. I love you, admire you, and salute you in the name of the Alfreds, Chapin, and George Sand...” See also No. 77, JACOB (Max).