There’s a new exhibition on Picasso which is actually transgressive: Picasso and the Bible. That promises to stir things up among worshippers of the great man, who was known for being Republican, Communist and atheist.  

The premise of the exhibition – which was opened this week with great fanfare at Burgos Cathedral in Spain – is that an artist can leave the Church, but the Church never really leaves him. The real theme of the exhibition isn’t Picasso and the Bible; it’s Picasso and Catholicism, a more explosive subject. The opening was attended by Picasso’s grandson, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso (a distinguished-looking gentleman who looks like his grandfather, crossed with Vladimir Putin), who lent works to the show, Queen Sofia and Cardinal Tolentino, head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture. 

The Cardinal spoke at the inauguration in a freezing side-chapel of the cathedral, and grasped the nettle firmly: how do you claim Picasso as a Catholic when he very conspicuously abandoned his baptismal faith? Look closely, the Cardinal urged: ‘The images are not neutral: they possess a cultural history, they draw on pre-existing symbolic codes, and they rework common roots. And these roots are no small matter.’  

So, although Picasso was rarely explicitly religious in his work, the work is infused with Catholic preoccupations. As his grandson Bernard observed, ‘we are all creatures of our land and country and environment’, and Picasso was steeped in the symbolism of the Spanish Church.........

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