The sixteenth-century Château Grimaldi
is a beautifully cool, light space, with hexagonal terracotta floor
tiles, windows over the sea and a terrace garden with sculptures by
Germaine Richier, Miró, César and others. In 1946, Picasso
was offered the dusty building - by then already a museum - as a
studio. Several extremely prolific months followed before he moved to
Vallauris, leaving all his Antibes output to what is now the Musée Picasso (Tues-Sun:
June-Sept 10am-6pm; rest of year 10am-noon & 2-6pm; €4.58).
Although Picasso donated other works later on, the bulk of the
collection belongs to this one period. There's an uncomplicated
exuberance in the numerous still lifes of sea urchins, the goats and
fauns in Cubist non-disguise and the wonderful Ulysses and his Sirens -
a great round head against a mast around which the ship, sea and sirens
swirl. Picasso himself is the subject of works here by other painters
and photographers, including Man Ray and Bill Brandt; there are several
anguished canvases by Nicholas de Staël,
who stayed in Antibes for a few months from 1954 to 1955; and works by
other contemporaries and more recent artists. Alongside the castle is
the cathedral, built on the site of an ancient temple. The choir and apse survive from the Romanesque building that served the city in the Middle Ages while the nave and stunning ochre facade are Baroque. Inside, in the south transept, is a sumptuous medieval altarpiece surrounded by immaculate panels of tiny detailed scenes.
One block inland, the morning covered market on cours Masséna overflows with Provençal goodies and
a profusion of cut flowers , the traditional and still-flourishing
Antibes business (June-Aug daily; rest of year closed Mon). On Friday
and Sunday (plus Easter-Sept Tues & Thurs) a craft market takes
over in the afternoon. When the stalls are all packed up, café tables
take their place. Antibes, or rather its promontory the Cap d'Antibes, is one of the select places on the
Côte d'Azur where the really
rich and the very, very successful still live, or at least have
residences. Yet it's not immediately obvious why this area should be so
desirable: it's just as built-up as the rest of the Riviera, with no
open countryside separating Golfe Juan, Juan-les-Pins and Antibes. Long-time resident Graham Greene
said it was the only town on the Côte that hadn't lost its soul;
perhaps he was right, though he also gave his reason for living there
as simply to be
with the woman he loved. Be that as it may, Antibes is extremely
animated, has one of the finest markets on the coast and the best
Picasso collection in its ancient seafront castle; and the southern end
of the Cap still has its woods of pine, in which the most exclusive
mansions hide.
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