Germans develop plans for the submarine U-1. In Málaga, accompanied by Casagemas, goes to visit Uncle Salvador in the hopes of obtaining the 1200 pesetas that could buy his way out of serving in the military. Outrages everybody by his behavior - ignoring his family members, visiting brothels, and by his dress and demeanor. His friend Casagemas joins him in all of his activities and adds excessive drinking. Casagemas' excesses lead Picasso to separate from him, asking his Uncle Salvador to pay his friend's passage back to Paris. This was the last time he was to see Casagemas alive. Apart from a few drawings, produces little work during the month they spend there. At this time, drops his father's name when signing his paintings. This will be the last time he returns to the city of his birth. Kaiser Wilhelm arrives in London to visit Queen Victoria as she was dying. Death of Queen Victoria; Edward VII becomes King of Great Britain. First female intern is accepted at a Paris hospital.

Presumably departs for Madrid. However, others place the departure date around MID-JANUARY (cf. Richardson 1991, 177).

Spends a few days in a pension on the Calle Caballero de Gracia, which Soler must have recommended.

Casagemas, who cannot forget his love for Germaine, returns by steamer to Barcelona on his way back to Paris.

Casagemas writes the Reventós brothers: "Picasso took off for Madrid this morning. I plan to be in Barcelona for as little time as possible, and if the ship gets there early, I'll go directly to the train station. If by chance I arrive in the evening or at night, I'll go to the Gats" (cf. Ocaña 1995, 157-158).

Will never see Casagemas alive again.

During the month, also makes a brief visit to Toledo.

"First he had stayed in a boarding-house, where they regaled him with fried eggs; but fried eggs, his figure for high luxury, were beyond his means and the regular hours irked him; presently he moved to a place of his own, and since he meant to stay in Madrid indefinitely he took a lease for a year ... Modernismo was only now reaching Madrid, that un-European town. Picasso had already had years of it in Barcelona and a most concentrated dose in Paris ... If Barcelona had seemed provincial after Paris, Madrid, apart from the Prado, was a desert ... He [Picasso] preferred producing the evidence of his views to talking about them, partly is concerned, and also perhaps because his deep-seated reserve made him unwilling to expose his private springs - no one was so adept at evading a question on aesthetics as Picasso: to avoid being pried into and made to commit himself he would use mockery, bad faith, and self-contradiction with baffling skill" (cf. O'Brian 1994, 93-104). "[The studio or garret in No. 28 of the Calle Zurbano] could only be reached through the top-floor flat. Its single room, which had neither light nor water, was also absolutely unfurnished ...[Picasso] furnished his new home with the bare essentials: a camp-bed with a straw mattress, an unpainted deal table and a chair. When he wanted to paint here at night, Sabartés tells us, he had to do so by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle ... Picasso captured the two extremes of Madrid society: the aristocracy and the poorest classes of all. And while he depicted the latter usually in strongly contrasted black and white, in dealing with the rich men's wives he resorted to a really seductive use of colour, both in pastel and in oils" (cf. Palau 1980, 215-219). "There were scenes from the streets and cafés, with stiff, fashionable ladies in muffs and furs, gypsy girls and groups of peasants. The women ranged from the idealized Pre-Raphaelite virgin with flowers in her hair to the realism of the whore wrapped in shawls, waiting at the door of her squalid den" (cf. Penrose 1981, 62). "Picasso was working within a limited range: men and women seated at tables, alone or in twos, meals being eaten, figures crouching or hugging themselves as they stand or sit, people with head in hand or arms crossed" (cf. Warncke 1995, 93). Signs a one year lease on a studio at 28 Calle Zurbano in Madrid (cf. Richardson 1991, 177). oppf01-002.jpg Calle Zurbano (cf. Palau 1980, 215) Casagemas's failure with Germaine drives him to suicide. Casagemas shoots himself in front of a group of friends at Café de l'Hippodrome, a restaurant on the Boulevard de Clichy in Montmartre. He is rushed, while still alive, to the Hôpital Bichot, where he dies shortly afterward at 11:30 PM. Germaine and Odette take Pallarés to a pharmacy for treatment of an eye which has been temporarily blinded by the blast, and then to Odette's house at 11, rue Chappe. Picasso learns about the incident while in Madrid. oppf01-001.jpg Café de l'Hippodrome (cf. Palau 1980, 213) Rene Dubos, French-US microbiologist who will develop the first commercial antibiotic, is born in France. His portrait drawing of his friend appears with an obituary by Eduard Marquina in Catalunya artistica.

With a friend from Els Quatre Gats, the Catalan writer Francisco de Asis Soler (c. 1880-1903), coedits a new art and literary journal called Arte Joven. In addition to coediting, he adds the roles of art editor and illustrator.

Paints the charcoal on paper Au café.

The inaugural issue of Arte Joven, with him and Francisco de Asís Soler as editors of the publication. Rusiñol publishes a short Symbolist tale, El Patio Azul (Other authors have dated the issue as March 10).

"Ruiz Picasso, who recently arrive in Madrid, has not slept for a moment, and has been studying, running around, painting, and sketching in all the streets and alleys of the land of the chulos. The principal fruit of his activity which has seen the light of day in Madrid is a new periodical, supported by good friends, Arte Joven. It has had a good start, particularly on the graphic side" (cf. Pèl & Ploma)

Although never warms to the Madrileños, his work on Arte Joven brings him into contact with some of the writers of the Generation of '98, notably Pio Baroja (1872-1956) and Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936), whose books and articles dealt with the re-evaluation of Spanish life in the aftermath of the war with Cuba.

Jo Mielziner, set designer (Carousel, Death of a Salesman), is born in Paris.

Begins immediate preparation for the exhibition that Manyac has organized of his work at Galerie Vollard on 6 Rue Laffite. Some of the works he executes include 'bullfights' as in the oil on canvas Course de taureaux (Corrida).

Paints a series of 'city scenes': in oil on cardboard Vendeuse de fleurs, Le Bassin des Tuileries, Longchamp and Le Roi Soleil; in oil on canvas Courses de taureaux; and in oil with pastel and charcoal Mère et fille au bord de la mer. Also paints 'self-portraits' such as the oil on canvas Autoportrait 'Yo, Picasso'; and the work in charcoal and pastel on paper Autoportrait 'Yo' [Étude]. His dealers and critics are represented as well in the oil on canvas Portrait du Père Manyac and the oil on cardboard Portrait de Gustave Coquiot [Ambroise Vollard].

During the next few months also turns frequently to the theme of 'Paris by night', as in the watercolor Le 'Divan Japonais'.

At night there were frequent visits to the cabarets of Montmartre such as the Chat Noir, and when tickets could be found, to the Moulin Rouge. These frequent excursions have led Roland Penrose to identify this time as the 'Cabaret Period'. Many of the women he would meet in these outings appear in his works, as in the oils on cardboard Pierreuse, la main sur l'épaule and Profil d'une jeune femme (fille avec fleur rouge); the oil on canvas Femme portant une cape; and the pastel on cardboard Femme souriante au chapeau à plumes (Buste de femme souriante).

"The moment when he started to paint landscapes represented a turning-point in his life. And Picasso has confirmed this. Landscape was for him a kind of minor art. He seemed to reimmerse himself in visual impressions before attacking a new theme - rather like an orchestra tuning up before it play a symphony" (cf. Vallentin 1963, 42). "Picasso's was a naturally dominant personality; his life was irregular even for a Spaniard; his habits squalid; the flat exceedingly small. 'Envahissant' has often been used in connection with him, a word for which the English 'encroaching' or 'overwhelming' are inadequate approximations" (cf. O'Brian 1994, 99-100). "[Following the example of Jules Chéret, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Auguste Renoir, Giovanni Boldini, Bonnard, Maurice Denis and Steinlen] he transcribes quickly, but with a sharpness which is already typical, the same café-concert shows, dances, night-life, horse races, interiors, or deep perspectives of streets, in a happy colored blossoming, where the shapes are diluted in suggestive blots, hardly outlined by darker colors" (cf. Diehl 1977, 18). "He was forever examining the creative principles of contemporary progressive art. His examination was a deliberate and selective process; one of Picasso's great abilities was his discernment of the strengths and weaknesses of new artistic movments, his gift for borrowing what he could use ... [The works of his Blue Period] constitute no less than a résumé of European artistic progress since the mid-19th century ... It was not poverty that led him to paint the impoverished outsiders of society, but rather the fact that he painted them made him poor himself ... The beggars, street girls, alcoholics, old and sick people, despairing lovers, and mothers and children, all fit the despondent mood of the Blue Period so perfectly that it is as if Picasso had invented them. But of course all he invented was his treatment; otherwise he was squarely in the avant-garde line of development since the mid-19th century [Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, etc] ... The revolution in form was accompanied by a revolution in subject matter. Their position as artistic outsiders prompted them to examine social realities" (cf. Warncke 1995, 81-85). "[For the exhibition at Galerie Vollard] he made sketches of children sailing their boats, leisurely crowds enjoying the Luxembourg Gardens, the brilliant fashions of ladies on the racecourse, or the prim midinette seated on the deck of a bateau mouche, and produced pictures full of an atmosphere of pleasant ease ... A more lurid world of night life also attracted his prying eye and many paintings of the early months of this visit are a continuation of the scenes to cafés and cabarets begun in Barcelona though with a more developed critical sense and pungency, which attacked the frivolous orgies of the rich ... Picasso did not let his work exclude visits to the museums, which were one of his chief amusements during these early days in Paris. By this time he knew his way round most of them. He spent long hours with the Impressionist paintings in the Luxembourg and he was often seen in the Louvre, where he was much intrigued by the art of the Egyptians and Phoenicians, which in those days were generally considered barbaric. The Gothic sculpture of the Musée de Cluny called for careful scrutiny and he was aware in a more distant way of the charm of Japanese prints" (cf. Penrose 1981, 69-72). "Picasso's oil paintings were done with little abrupt touches of pure colour dabbed on the canvas, the backgrounds seem to be composed of square pieces of confetti stuck on haphazardly, and the technique is nearer to pointillism than to Henri Toulouse-Lautrec's large planes. The tones are violent and often brutally juxtaposed ... On several occasions the violence of the colours in Picasso's work has been the prelude to a change in subject-matter which has then established itself in monochrome" (cf. Vallentin 1963, 31-32). "In the painting [Autoportrait 'Yo, Picasso'], Picasso retained little more than the upper left quadrant of the composition, deleting the easel and all other evidence of his profession - cf. Autoportrait 'Yo' [Étude]]. What remains is a close-up image of Picasso in a flowing white blouse and ample red cravat, a man whose stare conveys complete assurance. As the first painting listed in Ambroise Vollard's catalogue, it no doubt received a place of prominence in the exhibition. In that setting, no explanation of Picasso's role was required or desired, since such details might dilute its pure expression of self-confidence. In developing the composition, Picasso had leaped the boundaries of the studio, projecting his artistic persona into the public space of the gallery and the art world that passed through it" (cf. FitzGerald 2001, 22). "Such extravagances [as visits to cabaret] were rare; the establishments where Picasso could usually be found with his friends were extremely modest. For a while the headquarters of 'la bande' was a small bohemian cabaret in the place Ravignan, called Le Zut, [whose patron, Fredé would serve their drinks]. Its dim passages and stained walls lit with candles attracted a mixed bag of artists of all descriptions, pimps, and girls of varied occupations" (cf. Penrose 1981, 74) "As far as food was concerned he was naturally abstemious, and although he smoked continually he drank little wine and his apéririf was mineral water" (cf. O'Brian 1994, 94). "Sabartés gives us a detailed description of the tavern [the Zut] in all its slovenly abandon, with the hard earth floor and that unused room, swathed in cobwebs, that the friend decided to make their own ... It was in that practically abandoned room, which contained only a barrel, on which they placed their glasses, some benches so rotten that they were afraid to sit on them, and a light that hardly detracted from the floor at all, that they decided to meet one another regularly" (cf. Palau 1980, 281). "[Sabartés also describes how Picasso set down to decorate the walls of Le Zut:] In general he does not allow others to be present when he is painting, but all who have been admitted have been impressed by the completeness of his concentration, whether the work in question is of importance or relatively trivial. The line becomes visible in the exact place where it is required with such certainty that it is as though he were communing with a presence already there" (cf. Penrose 1981, 74). Japanese demand withdrawal of proposed agreement between Russia and China; Russians back off. One of the issues of Arte Joven announces the birth of another review, Madrid, Notas de Arte, which never comes to fruition.