Max Jacob was a great great artist. Not only did he paint pictures and write poems, but he also washed dishes, all in the Dada style. Jacob had been a prominent figure of Symbolism until he was caught destroying the aesthetic foundations of Art, at which point he moved to Dadaism where “they feed you better too”. His favorite own work, ‘Drame céleste’, was directly inspired by the event that occurred the night of June 7, 1909, during which Jacob was all the time pretending to be a statue, which surely saved him from being abducted. (Interestingly enough, a Greek statue from Modigliani’s studio was abducted instead.) Jacob believed that all the artistic reproductions were superior to the originals, and jokingly he used to say that he was a reproduction of Picasso. That’s why Picasso got mad at him and smashed his monocle. Since then Jacob couldn’t see up close, which forced him to paint from afar using a special brush seven yards long. The rivalry between the two artists extended to the personal level. On one occasion Picasso dared Jacob to parachute from the top of the Eiffel Tower -whoever reached the ground first would be the winner. Jacob won with a pretty big lead thanks to the trick of not opening his chute.
Image: ‘MAX JACOB’ BY PICASSO
SILLY HUMOR FOR SMART PEOPLE 