Perhaps the explanation of Picasso's quixotry can be found in something he said to the writer

Giovanni Papini in 1952: "Today, as you know, I am famous, I am rich. But when I am alone with
myself, I haven't the courage to consider myself an artist in the ancient sense of the word. Great
painters are people like Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt, Goya. I am only a public entertainer who has
understood the times and has exploited as best he could the imbecility, the vanity and the greed
of his contemporaries. Mine is a bitter confession, more painful than might seem, but it has the
merit of being sincere."