“It’s a different world in which one must forget the world one inhabits. Villa Santo-Sospir belongs to Madame Alec Weissweiller. It dominates Cape Santo-Sospir, the last point on the map before arriving at Cape Ferrat. The villa is situated on the road to the lighthouse, and its rocks descend to the sea. It looks out on Antibes, Cannes, Nice, and to the right, Villefranche…When I stayed in Santo-Sospir in the summer of 1950 I hastily decorated a wall. Matisse told me that if you decorate one wall, you should do the others as well. He was right. Picasso opened and closed all the doors. All that was left to do was to paint the door.”
“But the doors lead into rooms. The rooms have walls. And if the doors are painted the walls have an empty look…”
“Since being a poet means publicly confiding one’s secrets, better to speak out loud in our sleep.”
“Work does not keep me from an occasional horse ride.”
“Work does not keep me from even riding a lion.”
“Picasso, Matisse, Chagall and myself, on this coast where Renoir used to live, we have tried to defeat the destructive spirit of our time. We have ornamented the surfaces which men dream to demolish. Perhaps the love of our work will protect it from bombs.”
[All quotes and caps from Cocteau's La Villa Santo-Sospir, 1952.]
