Picasso - The Dove of Peace Black

In February 1949, a few years after the Second World War, a World Congress of Peace Partisans by the World Peace Movement was held at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. Picasso was a member of the Communist Party at the time, like many intellectuals. According to the little story reported by the newspaper La Croix, "Aragon, one of the organizers of the event, approached his friend Pablo Picasso to ask him for a drawing." Picasso then drew the profile of a dove, inspired by the white pigeons he kept in cages in his studio. This dove evokes the story of Noah's Ark told in the Bible. Indeed, the bird, sent by Noah three times to see the end of the Flood and therefore the end of the ordeal, brought back an olive leaf, which signified to Noah that the earth was free of water. According to La Croix, "the whiteness and lightness of the bird have evoked hope and a return to peace since Antiquity."

The Dove of Peace, 1949

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