Many people say ‘I may not know much about art but I know what I like’. Such people tend not to like Picasso. I say ‘I know a lot about art and I know what I like… and I don’t like Picasso’. To be fair it’s not just Picasso who I dislike; he’s simply the most famous of a whole raft of artists who’ve conned the gullible.
That ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ cannot be argued against, and that art ‘buyers pays their money and takes their choice’ is on an equally firm footing. The sad thing is that beauty is not a consideration for many art buyers. The international art market is a futures market: they’d buy a brick if they thought they could sell it for more tomorrow than they bought it for today (Carl Andre staggers to mind under his enormous pile of bricks which were taken of his hands by the Tate gallery in London, much to his relieve no doubt). So let’s not worry about the ‘art’ market, it’s not going to go away as long as people are still making money and I suspect few in it kid themselves it’s about art… though they may kid others.
Which brings me back to Picasso. Picasso, a by-word for great art, lauded as the greatest artist of the last century. Well I’m no Picasso, so let me try and show you his art without the rose tinted hype surrounding it.
Perhaps Picasso’s most acclaimed (certainly written about) painting is ‘Guernica’, it’s subject is war. It is simply bad. A large sprawling cat’s cradle of various parts of cartoon characters painted with all the control, grace, subtlety and flair of a eight year old scrawling a dirty picture on a classroom chalk board. And yet this painting is considered his finest work, a powerful condemnation of war said to have reduced people who’ve seen it to tears. Why? Because it’s a Picasso, those people have paid 15€ to see the greatest painting of the 20th centenary and that’s what they see. Shrink it to A3 and stick it up on the wall of their kid’s school and no one would look at it twice.
Now before you think this rant (er, it’s a BLOG, Ed.) is all about rubbishing other, more successful painters(er, I thought that’s exactly what we’re about, Ed.) let me show you another painting. Far less well know than Guernica but far more deserving of acclaim. Its subject is war, the same as Guernica’s, but in its execution it is ever thing Guernica is not. Shrunken to any size and stuck anywhere this painting draws attention and speaks for itself, it is John Sargent’s ‘Gassed’.
You don’t know nearly as much about art as you claim to and you have absolutely no idea how to criticize artwork. Picasso became as famous as he was because he was immensely creative and pushed the boundaries of painting further than any artist before him. Educate yourself before trying to educate others.
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Art should be beautiful in and of itself. I shouldn’t have to know anything about the piece of work to find it beautiful. I shouldn’t require a degree in history of art to find any particular artwork beautiful.
And personally. I do not find picasso’s work beautiful, I am therefore well within my rights to call it crap, because that’s what it looks like.
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Wrong. Art does not have to be beautiful. Art has to be art. Art is an expression shown visually (or through other mean). It doesn’t have to mean anything, look like anything, or do anything. If it makes you feel a certain way, then it’s done its duty. Picasso wasn’t afraid to express himself through his art. He did what he did, he did it well, and he because famous for it. You don’t have to like his deformed style or childlike creativity but that doesn’t make him a bad artist. Just look at his portrait of Olga. It’s a beautiful painting, and the unfinished background just makes the beauty of her face and clothing look that much more stunning. He knew what he was doing. Sure, some people do buy into the “he’s famous so I should like him” crap but not everyone. Jackson Pollock is a famous painter. I don’t think his stuff is bad nor would I ever consider him a bad artist but I’m just not crazy about his work. It’s just not my cup of tea.
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Now we’ve seen the light. Let’s burn our Picasso effigies!
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I agree with you. Picasso has been overrated with so called modern art. Youngsters today who are doing hyperrrealistic art are much better than this so called picasso. But yet picasso’s works have been too exaggerated in prices. Modern art is shit…..
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Picasso is so overrated. Imo his paintings are super ugly. A pianist has talent because few people can play the piano, and a painter has talent because few people can draw. Anyone can scribble or splash random colors on a canvas, that doesn’t make her or him an artist. The problem is that you will always find idiots to object to this opinion under the pretext that it is “modern art” and “full of meanings that your mind, or “lack or artistic taste” can’t decipher”. My mind is very well capable of seeing the beauty in a flower, or butterfly, and recognizing a piece of crap when I see one.
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What’s it to you anyway whether Picasso is good or bad?
I am really surprised by how many have posted negative comments about Picasso.
Honestly I think it night stem from a hatred of those more educated and worldly.
I believe it is the less educated the evaluate art based on whether it appears realistic or not.
But youri nsults aremisplaced because art evaluation is subjective.
One man’s masterpiece is another’s trash.
So it’s foolhardy and pointless to argue in favor of one artist over another.
However, I would say that the sheer volume of accurate realistic painters is vast.
And most of them are not considered great artists.
They are copying something. Why not just use a camera.
That’s why Picasso changed to creative, unrealistic style.
Also, with realism, to me, the colors are boring, but with Picasso and others who do more creative and less realistic works, the color combinations can be something to appreciate over and over.
How about Rothko and Basquiat, I guess they suck too, right?
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I believe you don’t know what you believe.
Do you believe “…art evaluation is subjective [and therefore] One man’s masterpiece is another’s trash”?
Or do you believe, art is objective and therefore us thick-os must have our evaluation of art corrected by “…those more educated and worldly”?
But, I do believe you believe, you’re one of the “more educated and worldly” – don’t you Richard.
Ps Rothko and Basquiat, are shit. Basquiat more so than Rothko as Rothko’s smooth transitions do take some skill, or at least patients.
Pps I don’t hate you.
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now a days create average art .then find nice writer and describe your art with some heavy words and meanings and get it sold for millions 😛
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Hello Picasso, well it seems reports of your death were exaggerated!
First of all, thank you (Picasso) very much for taking the trouble to get in touch, it really is much appreciated.
The thing is I wouldn’t disagree with you when you (Picasso) say that you (Picasso) were so successful because you (Picasso) ‘pushed the boundaries of painting’. Where I would differ is that, I wouldn’t say it as though it were a good thing. In fact I’d keep very quiet about it.
Let’s face it, you pushed the WRONG boundaries. All you and your ilk achieved was to the ‘push of boundaries’ until only Novelty Art* was salable – as a result 100 years worth of beautifully crafted art was lost, just so you (and your ilk) could make a quick buck on the band wagon.
Bad Picasso, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!
lovely to hear from you again, fond regards,
Max Schindler
P.S. you don’t know how much I know about art, as to how much I claim to know: it is enough to not need to regurgitate the opinions of others – or ‘educate’ myself, as you put it.
P.P.S. why do you refer to yourself in the third person, is it a Cubist thing?
*Novelty Art – any art which tries to be more messy, more unintelligible, more shocking, more bonkers or more bigger** than any other art that has gone before and which requires, proportionately, less skill; aka Modern Art.
** (I know)
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I’m not someone who can claim to be into art, I’m a layman really, I like more realistic pieces, that skill I can admire, Sistine chapel, Botticelli. Sculpture work of the Greeks and romans. Salvador Dali is exceptional I think. But I’m so glad you wrote an article about this lol, his paintings are shit! The amount of money that people will pay for something my 6 year old nieces could make is astounding. Another similar artist that comes to mind is Jackson pollock, the man’s legacy is basically having his paintings referenced as a punch line in film scripts to describe having the shits.
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Pretentious dicks such as yourself is exactly the reason why CRAP like this sells for millions.
Please go hang yourself.
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Woah you don’t have to be so angry. Picasso was a genius. He proved he could paint like the masters at age 15. With all due respect, miss, it’s not pretentiousness, it’s adtually just education. The more you know about art, the more you appreciate and understand more abstract works. Picasso was the first master to introduce the world to graphic design. Much of graphic design out there today is based on what Picasso invented. But someone who doesn’t really know much about art would never see that because they’re ignorant. You can’t call a wave of taste, pretentious. People paid so much money for something not be Gaudencia it was a Picasso, because it was gorgeous to look at and no other artist could create anything like him. So it was unique. It’s kind of like someone who doesn’t like Oysters. It’s not that oysters are crap, they flavor is so rare and unique that when you get it you get it and you indulge. Some people get it, some people don’t.
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Woah Fernando, you don’t have to be so condescending.
You’re getting ART mixed up with MATHS, or PSYHICS or possibly NEEDLEPOINT. Abstract art is not an objective reality to be taught. The more I ‘know about art’ the LESS I ‘appreciate abstract works’. Though you are right, I do understand them better. They are a con, a rip-off, a sell-out, an activitity not worth getting out of bed for- as Tracy Emmin proved.
As I have mentioned elsewhere in this post, so what if Picasso COULD paint well, fact is he DIDN’T. Or as he put it ‘I spent my childhood trying to paint like an adult and my adulthood trying to paint like a child’…or some such disingenuous waffle.
Or, as Forest Gump’s mother put it: ‘stupid is as stupid does’.
Picasso paints like a child and we equate that with genius!?!?!
Billions of kids do it every day; we don’t pay millions for them and lock them in museums- why do we do that with Picassos?. Picasso wanted to painted like a kid, fine; but his ‘art’ should be treated accordingly- cheap as chips and stuck on your fridge.
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You sound like a moron. Picasso is a brand. Remove his name and suddenly the painting is less than elementary. Don’t confuse art that is amazing to crap art that is only respected by dipshits with money to burn. I doubt any real gifted artist see Picasso art and are impressed. Retards like you are told what to think. Its marketing and you are the dumb ass who doesn’t know that. Simple minded sheep!
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Shut up. Pablo blows goats. You suck at art so you think he’s a great artist.
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Creative? Perhaps you are mixing up your adjectives here. Destructive is the word that you should use, then your post makes sense.
Picasso didn’t become famous, he was made famous. As more and more people prefer the ugly and the deformed to the beautiful and the uplifting, they are willing to pay any amount of money for what would be in a more enlightened time a waste of canvass and paint. The fact that Picasso is famous doesn’t really speak much about him, rather it speaks more about the depravity of his time. Perhaps he pushed the boundaries of painting, but I would say he pushed off a cliff. You may call it art if you want, you may even call it great art, but its not beautiful, its not uplifting, its not elevating, its not transcendent, its not luminous, its not limpid, its not… well think about every good adjective and its not that.
In an age that considers a bunch of bricks arranged by a maniac or rubbish collected in garbage bins or cow dung art then I have no hesitation in calling Picasso’s works art. But if by ‘art’ we mean the work of man meant to uplift and enchant and to instill every good feeling, then most certainly, Picasso’s monstrosities do not come under that head.
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Creative? Perhaps you are mixing up your adjectives here. Destructive is the word that you should use, then your post makes sense.
Picasso didn’t become famous, he was made famous. As more and more people prefer the ugly and the deformed to the beautiful and the uplifting, they are willing to pay any amount of money for what would be in a more enlightened time a waste of canvass and paint. The fact that Picasso is famous doesn’t really speak much about him, rather it speaks more about the depravity of his time. Perhaps he pushed the boundaries of painting, but I would say he pushed off a cliff. You may call it art if you want, you may even call it great art, but its not beautiful, its not uplifting, its not elevating, its not transcendent, its not luminous, its not limpid, its not… well think about every good adjective and its not that.
In an age that considers a bunch of bricks arranged by a maniac or rubbish collected in garbage bins or cow dung art then I have no hesitation in calling Picasso’s works art. But if by ‘art’ we mean the work of man meant to uplift and enchant and to instill every good feeling, then most certainly, Picasso’s monstrosities do not come under that head.
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Whoever said you need to work hard for money needs to see Picasso lol. I can just draw a dot on paper and call it the dot in a realm of endless possibilities and sell it for 50 million dollars.
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you will however need an “art dealer” to sell your Dot for 1M to another “art dealer” of his kin, and then to another for 5M, and so on. “art” is big business only if rich ‘people’ dig it. For the record, Pablo P. actually did some real fine art in his Olga years (copying photos not included); then came madness.
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try XD
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Dude I hope you get strangled by a huge aids infested cock, you are simply retarded. Your defending a borderline retard who was clinically bat shit crazy. I was in the army and on occasion we would work the federal prisons. I would see works of art made in shit and piss(literally), although that’s similar to pissandshitcasso, it was 8yr old quality drawings much like your art hero…all in all he sucks as well as your taste in crap you admire
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Why does it have to be ‘aids-infested’ if the strangling does the killing?
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Picasso is and was garbage. I would burn his garbage works and all copies and facsimiles and descriptions of them so people no longer have to worship these steaming piles of garbage. People, especially the art fart sniffing types, are losers and hold modern artists to the standards of idiots and con artists from the past. Brâncuși is another trash peddler. I would burn the MOMA down as well.
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I’m going to pull the “as an artist card” here and say that as an artist myself, I could pump out hundreds if not thousands of Picasso-esque works and smear faeces on a canvas and it would get famous before my actual works. And as a bonus, he really wasn’t pushing any extreme boundaries, look at the works of Dadaists or Fauvists, who literally sought to combat conceptions of art, or Diego Rivera’s stunning “Man Controller of the Universe”. Picasso was a chauvinistic drunkard who played the world of art critics like a fiddle.
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Instead of simply accusing the blogger of knowing very little about art, why don’t you prove it by showing how Picasso “pushed the boundaries of painting further than any artist before him”? Why don’t you, with your artistic knowledge, convey Picasso’s value and prove the blogger wrong instead of making platitudinous generalizations about how great he was? It’s funny how you’re belittling the blogger with absolutely no evidence of your own. You’ve proven absolutely nothing about the blogger’s intellect, you, or Picasso as your omment can be summed up in six words: “Nuh-uh. You’re stupid. He was great.”
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Someone buy this man a whiskey!
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Bla bla bla bla….Picasso sucks !
and all those who admire him are disabled people that can’t draw as retarded 5 years old kid so they admire that retarded the so called “Picasso”.
haha….
well, it’s easy: only dumbs admire dumb…
each kind find it’s group 🙂
Talk about Davinci or Rambrdnt , those are serious and deserve to be famous but not Fifaso….hahaha
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Picasso owes a lot of his fame to Gertude Stein, as far as pushing the boundaries, so what?? There were many more who pushed them with skill and genius, I think he was overated and just because he pefected the ’emperor’s new clothes syndrome’ doesn’t mean we have to fall for it. Shame on you cliche art critics. It’s a big money game.
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Picasso’s work is technically devoid. He didn’t push any boundaries. Quite the opposite, in fact. He painted like a child and expected adults to appreciate it. That’s regressive, not genius. The colors clash with each other in a way that takes away any style from his pieces and the geometry is so outlandish as to make it impossible to convey any message, if there ever was one to begin with. Rather than forming an impression of the piece or the artist, the viewer is filled with confusion. This confusion is inevitably replaced by one of two reactions: Either you think Picasso must know something you don’t, or you believe that a fool and his money are quickly parted.
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“educate” its subjective, picasso was a below average painter at his peak, to say he revolutionised art is just a regurgitation of art history rhetoric curriculum, so if you admire him so much why dont you think outside the box like he did and go make some scribbles and revolutionse the art world.
sargent was a better painter in every single way, this is undeniable
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Picasso could paint very well.
The fact that he chose not to does not in my book, in anyway excuse the appalling messes he did chose to paint. If anything it makes them worse.
Picasso has to be judged by what he chose to paint, not what he didn’t.
The work is all that counts, in 1000 years everything else will be forgotten or misunderstood; if it isn’t already.
Financially he almost certainly made the right choice.
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man, most of picasso’s painting are ugly as hell, every hipser fucker like you thinks that if you’re not a “well educated artist” you can’t tell what’s beautiful, the drawings i did at 13 years old, were more beautiful than “guernica”
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I like how your screen name is KillHipsters, and then you can’t even spell “hipster” right in your post. And “Guernica” wasn’t intended to be beautiful, for what it’s worth. And maybe your drawings at 13 WERE beautiful. But all of you people ripping on Picasso are a laugh. You know, the only thing worse than an intellectual is a pseudo-intellectual. Picasso was many things. But a shit painter he was not. And any painter worth his or her salt will concur. Yes, he played the art world. Yes, his ego was enormous (like 80% of the greats). But he never put out shit work. Go take a look at Man With a Pipe (1911) at the Kimbell in Fort Worth. NO ONE commenting here could have painted that, myself included. And I’ve painted or drawn every day of my life since I was 3 or 4. And now I am 75. I’m no elitist. My father ran a garage when I was a kid. I got an opportunity to study at the Art Institute of Chicago, then spent years bumming all over Europe before coming back home to take over my dad’s garage. And that’s how I spent my life. Fixing cars and painting at night. I’ve always painted for myself. No one has more disdain for the world of art critics, Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and collectors than me. Picasso is far down my list of favorite painters. But let’s be real clear here, since most of you are apparently under the age of 40 – until you’ve done your homework; until you’ve painted daily for at least 30 straight years – your proclamations of Picasso being a shit painter hold no water. It’s fine to say you hate his paintings. It’s fine to say you think he’s overrated. But in the end, Art is about work. Picasso did the work. I didn’t begin to really understand painting until I was 50. I have great respect for Picasso, even if he’s not my favorite. He was a fully formed artist. That’s all any creator can aspire to – be it Picasso, Dante, GERTRUDE Stein, or Zelenka. I’ve wasted enough time. I should be painting instead of pontificating. Cheers. Have fun ripping up Picasso. Maybe you can talk about how overrated Cézanne or Braque are next.👍
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Here is one of the gullible Max haha
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Shite, you are talking shite.
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You can’t “push boundaries” in painting. You just paint. If you paint like an 8 year old it’s crap. Period. Picasso sucks.
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Worst art I’ve ever seen. Elementary school children do better work. It’s garbage.
Look at Charles Wilson Peale’s work… that’s art!
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Refrain of the stupid: “Doy, it’s creative and if you don’t see it, you’re dumb!” The fact is, Picasso was a lazy asshat whose works have been used in a vast scandal.
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The author cannot even write.
‘… it’s not just Picasso who I dislike..’.
It’s ‘whom’ I dislike. If you can’t write, why should anyone take you seriously?
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Wot!? Seriously!?!? You gotta be joking me – innit.
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Grammar twat.
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Its crap what ever artisy mumbo jumbo its wrapped up in. He just managed to get a living out of third grade art that would not normally sell.
As for creative I think he lost focus and just went along with what he thought he could get cash for
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You are correct in your assailments…oops…assessments of Pie-Kasso. Poor guy, If indeed he mastered the academic methods as a young man, he certainly failed to explore realist, or objective possibilities of the several traditional genres from still life to history painting — not even the nude!!!! You choose Guernica as his worst while I believe Guernica was absolutely lost to viewers until the question: “ Oh, so you did this?” “No you did!!” Then it made sense. In my view, the ugliest is The ugly African masked faces of ladies on Avignon street … That has to be the ugliest painting ever to be squeezed out of a tube and splattered on canvas!!! Sheer unmitigated ugly!
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Needing to know about art in order to like a painting defeats the purpose of art.
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excellent point.
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Your thoughts and opinions fall apart from the first sentence. You and yours think there is only a single, usually academic way to approach art. When in reality that is the absolute worst way to approach art. It dehumanizes it, makesnit formulaic, and attempts to make it only accessible to snobs who subscribe to and follow the fake art establishment like lemmings, never thinking for themselves. You think Picasso and other artists are great because you were told they were, plain and simple. It’s not your fault you can’t overcome your education and prejudices. In fact, you aren’t even capable of thinking outside your programming.
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ooook so, if we’re bringing up Pablo’s politics and life-outside-art, let’s fully _educate_ ourselves by reading his bio, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso,
and then, knowing it all, does it help his case ?
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You are a fool. How is an ignorant philistine like you allowed to post on art forums? Imbecile. You are an embarrassment to the art community snd you should be serving tapas at art showings while keeping your mouth shut. Simpleton.
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The man is educated to the point that he doesn’t buy into the false ideology that “anything different = good every time”. This man, along with most of the world, is tired of “IT IS ART! IT IS A PORTRAYAL FROM SOMEONE AND THAT MAKES IT ART!!!”. Murder is the acting out of inner frustrations and anger to the point that you cast blood out like a modern painting and yet no one sees it as an artful expression of inner turmoil; it is seen as a crime.
Trash is trash, and just because a demigod-like person made it doesn’t mean it isn’t trash. I mean people buy celebrity pee, but that’s what happens when you have a mental disorder.
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Picasso’s work is ugly as hell that any fifth grader could do. He had no real talent — just as Frida Kahlo’s work is ugly as hell, sold to gullible idiots that one can easily make part with their money.
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You confuse Art as a “craft” with expression.
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I confuse nothing.
Expression without competence is incoherence.
Expression without commonality is incomprehensible.
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He was “creative” and he “pushed the boundaries.” This is what people say about people whose art is awful and obviously ugly.
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Nope, he’s right. Picasso’s art is terrible to look at. An assassination of the eyes, sort of.
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You are mentally ill and in a just society we would put you in a work camp
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OMG thank you for this honest post. I expect you got a lot of hate mail for it. I’m gonna get flak for this message too. But after hearing so much about Picasso, I was delighted to have the chance to view his original works at the Picasso Museum in Antibes. I can’t believe anyone actually thinks his art is good. It’s just work after work of misshapened twisted scrawling that somehow art enthusiasts have conned themselves into believing are works of an art genius. If my kid drew like Picasso, I’d seriously consider gently steering him into something else like sports or music. But one thing is for sure. Picasso’s certainly made me realise that anything is possible in this world if you’re in the right place at the right time.
I’m off to take a macro shot of my turd in the toilet bowl and post it on the net. It may be worth millions in a couple of years.
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I doubt it, its already been done… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist's_shit
and he’s not the only one.
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Omg you’re joking, aren’t you?! Tins of crap selling for £100,000?? Why do we even bother going to work anymore!
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If my kid drew like Picasso, I’d seriously consider getting him tested for mental issues and into therapy.
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If you have ever researched Picasso you should know that not only was he dyslexic but he also suffered from depression for a long time. There is no wonder that he painted the way he did.
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I went and saw the picasso museum in Antibes, south France ‘s and would not recommend anyone going there unless to laugh at the ridiculously expensive carp he produced. I’m a 2nd year GCSE art student and I’ve seen better work from amateurs who know how to create good median art! Not just charcoal and drawing a sketch i draw to have a laugh with my friends or a bloody cement man!” Picasso” you can’t comment without viewing the work in person·In my opinion pPicasso is commen and used as “rich people tea party snobbery talk” and “lack of understanding” twats!
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Thats been done already!!!
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I agree 100%. Picasso was a fad. Is a fad. Adored by people who can’t decide for themselves what they actually like in art. His paintings are comparable to a kindergartener’s. Fooling the masses. That’s what money makers do. If someone held up a canvas smeared with cow dung and claimed Picasso did it, that ‘painting’ would be deemed brilliant and sold in 2 shakes flat.
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Good to hear from you JJ, and thanks for chipping in your 2 decibels worth in the outcry against crapart.
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If you come right out and call Picasso ‘crap’, then you’re only going to be dismissed by modern art enthusiasts who will see you as being insensitive, uncultured, ignorant, lacking perception, and so on. I myself don’t like Picasso’s work, but these days I try to offer a more balanced view of it.
When Picasso became famous, the art world was looking for ways to shatter conventions, find new ways of expression, explore the nature of perception, and so on. Painters needed to validate their art at a time when photography and movies were rapidly becoming the most exciting visual mediums – they needed to make paintings do things that photographs and movies couldn’t, namely explore new modes of visual perception, distort reality, find new ways of expressing emotions visually. Picasso won acclaim as the most innovative of the artists who were doing these things. This was partially because he was more radical than a lot of artists who were experimenting in painting at the time, and also because Picasso was a great, and ruthless, self-promoter and self-mythologizer, like Gauguin before him, only more so. The art world needed a sort of high priest to lead it into the modern age, and Picasso, a narcissistic personality, was only too happy to assume the role.
So that, I think, is why Picasso has the prominence he has, and why he’s synonymous with great art – he was a shameless self-advertiser, but he was also possibly the most innovative experimenter amongst those who were trying to invent a new art for the 20th century. I say possibly because there were other painters who were doing similar things at the same time – people like Georges Braques and others. Picasso is generally accepted to have been the wildest innovator, though, and he probably was.
Does that mean that we should still find his paintings wonderful to look at, though? I’m an artist, I’ve studied art for years, I’m extremely passionate about paintings – but I’ve never enjoyed looking at a Picasso painting. I look at them and feel nothing – just irritation, actually. I find them ugly and crude, and sense no maturity or sensitivity in them – only violence and self-aggrandizement – the work of an artist who believed that anything he did was brilliant and unique, and his audience believed it too. I appreciate that he has a place in the history of art – there is a reason he came to prominence – but I would never put one of his paintings, or a print of one, on my wall. I’m not someone who hates all modern art, either – I love a lot of 20th century painting, including some very experimental stuff. You’re absolutely right about Sargent’s painting being a far more powerful evocation of the tragedy of war than ‘Guernica’. Sargent was long out of fashion by the time Picasso painted his giant cartoon illustration – his painting is incredible, though – great choice.
There’s a fine line: you can look at Picasso’s work and find it ‘crap’, but you have to also understand why it has won the acclaim that it has. When people tell you that Picasso’s work is great, that’s what they’re really saying – that at a time when art needed to find its way forward into a new phase, Picasso was the one who came up with new ideas – he was the one who attacked the old conventions of painting with the most brio and violence. He was an artist’s artist, just as James Joyce was a writer’s writer, writing books that wouldn’t please your average reader, but delighted the kind of people who were looking for a ‘new literature’ at the time. You either value that or you don’t – you’re perfectly free to just like what art appeals to you, despite what art boffins tell you. They’re not really gullible – they’ve grasped that Picasso was historically very important to the development of the art of painting, which is true. Whether they’re really moved by Picasso’s paintings, and weep when they stand before ‘Guernica’……well, I don’t know……I seriously doubt that it’s because of the sheer power of the image. I think there’s a lot of affectation going on. I don’t really get why they need a painting to make them feel that way about war. Why not just look at some photographs of similar subject matter? Why is Picasso’s Guernica more powerful than, say, the movie ‘Platoon’, or photographs of mass graves? I think this is indeed a myth put forward by people who like to think of themselves as cultured.
Anyway – I agree with you, with one qualification: I would say Picasso’s art is crap….to look at. It’s not crap, I suppose, in as much as it constituted some potentially interesting experiments in visual expression. If those experiments don’t interest you…….then his work will just be crap.
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I’m glad you brought up the root cause of why we suffer from ‘modernly Art’ – PHOTOGRAPHY. I was going to do a post on it but never got round to it. Anyway you summed up in a couple of sentence what I was going to string out over several paragraphs, so thank you for that. As to the rest of your post I can only say, I concur.
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“If you come right out and call Picasso ‘crap’, then you’re only going to be dismissed by modern art enthusiasts who will see you as being insensitive, uncultured, ignorant, lacking perception, and so on”
Time to call a spade a spade.
Modern ‘artists’, their support and parasites, have been humored enough.
Time for a wake-up call.
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I ‘ve been painting for 50 years!! Of course I experiment. But recognize also that not everything that I produce is going to work, is exhibitable, has promise etc. The artist has internal brakes, a working and quality standard. Today everybody is a photographer. Does this translate into no one should paint anymore!?? Photo is making something from something. Actually, I love film photography and the act of developing in the darkroom. Painting is a completely differing form. Creating something that exists nowhere else in the world except on that canvas surface. Something from nothing but ideas.
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From ideas or impulses. End
Los
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The message in Art is more important than it’s aesthetics, in guerinca there is a far more elaborate message than there will ever be in the other one. For example if you even take the slightest amount of effort you will see it don’t. For example, dead disfigured face along with horses tell us way more than what they other painting in that there are only soldiers. Weeping mothers is another one (or weeping spouse), the light bulb on top is shedding light to the reality. There is a lot more. From what I can understand is that just because you can’t understand it.. it’s bad.
Would you rather date a hot girl with no intellectual depth, if you would please continue walking down the path you are.
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‘The message in Art is more important than it’s aesthetics’… no it isn’t.
If you want to send messages scribble a note, if you want to send an elaborate message write a book. Art is not a effect medium for conveying ideas, like music it is better at emotion than concepts. Karl Marx didn’t write Das Kapital as a symphony; nor was Newton’s Principia Mathematica a series of doodles.
You may think: ‘the light bulb on top is shedding light to the reality’ but why isn’t it: ‘the light of science’or ‘blinding the people below’ or just ‘frighting the horse’? Is the Bull Spain or is it a bull? is it protecting the woman with the dead (or sleeping) baby or is it trampling them? Is Guernica the horrors of war or just a mad day on the farm?
Art critics argue that such ‘ambiguities’ are one of Art’s strengths, that ‘art is about firing the imagination rather than simply viewing objects’. Over the years, this argument has inevitable encouraged various ‘modernist artistas’ to ‘produce’ various ‘works’ of ‘mimimallyconceptulallistic art’ in varying degree of ‘minimal/concept’ from: ‘really not much there at all’ to ‘really nothing there at all’. Ok, not a very broad spectrum but here are some famous examples:
Did you like them?
I know, it’s ‘difficult’ work isn’t it, thank God we have critics to explain it to us.
In 2012 the ‘Curator’s’ of London’s Hayward Gallery ‘showcased’ ‘mincon’ art’s most celebrated exponents in their ‘Invisible art exhibition’; with towering works of monumental absence from the likes of Yves St. Klein, Tom Tom Freedman and Andy Hole. The Hayward’s wall papering and gall provoking exhibition raised several important questions such as: should the gallery have employed security guards and how would they know if something had being knicked? or, how did the public know when the exhibition was over and should they have been charged more to see it when it was?
John Sargent’s ‘Gassed’ succeeds where ‘Guernica’ fails because its message is emotion not ideas; because Sargent’s employs skill convey that emotion clearly, whereas Picassco’s pretensions scramble only server to his ideas; and because ‘Gassed’ is beautiful and ‘Guernica’ is not… and beauty outlives ideas.
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The comparison would be “would you rather look at a beautiful girl or a skanky slag?”
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I would say that the message in Art is the least important part of it. The subject matter is rather irrelevant. Great art is achieved through mastery of form and technique, whether or not the subject is interesting, poignant, banal, or even evil, such as Triumph des Willens.
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Picasso art is crap because anyone can draw like him. Clearly no artistic talent.
A glass of bad wine is still a bad wine, no point creating excuses, I see more meaning in a piece of fallen leaf. only dealers in his art says its valuable.
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Picasso had talent but he chose not to use it. Which doesn’t make the crap he did chose to do any better, or excuse it. One of the many things art historian don’t get is that art is all about the art. D’moselle d’avingion (OR WHATEVA) isn’t a great painting because a lot of gullible hacks imitated it, and their imitations don’t make Picasso a great painter, and art historians aren’t clever for saying the opposite.
It is such self sustaining spirals of depreciation that created modern art.
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Picasso’s “art” is TO ME, ‘awful’. In my opinion, he got attention and adulation simply via the shock value of the ‘stuff’ he ‘created’. Talentless rubbish. Hard on the eyes. Rubs me the wrong way in my soul. Yet, if people want to buy it, so be it. What difference does it make what I, or you for that matter, think of it? There is, in my opinion, no redeeming value to criticizing anyone else’s art except for this. As we are a community of beings (and as we ARE ‘our brothers keepers’ – because we ARE to ‘love one another’) the value of criticizing so called ‘art’ lies in this; freeing people from the bondage of feeling as though they have to share the opinions of the ‘experts’. People tend to feel as though they HAVE to agree with critics or else they feel themselves out of touch, stupid, uninformed, back woods etc. As such, if they feel as though they are on the outside of what the experts or the high and mighty say, they tend to feel …. well lets say ‘bad’. Criticizing Picasso’s so called ‘art’, calling it ‘crap’ does potentially bring the blessing of encouraging people to say they ‘hate’ it if they actually are inclined to think that. In The Emperors New Clothes people were afraid to tell the king that he actually did not have on any clothing because they feared the outcome, anticipated to be wrath and retribution and rejection by the high and mighty, iF they said what they obviously knew was true vs what the King thought (that he was resplendidly (sp?) dressed. And so they all ‘agreed’ with him, praised his wonderful clothing though in fact, he was naked. Well that is, in my not so humble opinion, the case with the admiration of Picasso and a host of others (Pollack !!!!!). I hate all that stuff and I do, in fact, think it is all worthless ‘crap’. So, because I do have concern about the well being of others who I fear are in the bondage of having to say they think “it’s great” because the snot nosed ‘experts’ say so, I speak up, if asked and boldly say; “well since you asked, Yes, I do think it is crap, worthless, tasteless crap and it’s very OK IF you feel that way too. Go ahead, say it to yourself and if you are confident enough, and if any one asks you, say so OUT LOUD and don’t allow yourself to ‘feel bad’ when ‘they’ mock you for your ‘unlearned boorish opinion. Be liberated from that wicked suppressive paradigm’. On the other hand, I do not recommend barging into other peoples lives insisting that they hear my opinion. So let me finish this by saying that I think Picasso’s “art” is garbage, worthless and foolish. Is there such a thing as “art” ‘supposed’ to being some way? well that is a discussion altogether on another plane – which I would be happy to discuss at another time. So, if you “love” Picasso and have read this and are insulted, I apologize for any insult…. I am just saying what I think with the hope in mind that someone else who sees his ‘stuff’ and feels obligated to think they should think and say that they admire it to fit in and to be accepted but actually thinks its crap should come out from under that bondage and simple exactly what they think about it …. and feel good about it.
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I recently stayed in a Hotel called Hotel Picasso Paintings in every room and corridor, this is the first time I’ve looked closely at his work and can honestly say I agree with you Max! What a load of over rated crap
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Agreed. Don’t get it. As for Tracey Emin’s bed …….
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So glad to have found this post! Just back from Paris where I visited the Picasso museum and it just confirmed to me that I don’t like Picasso’s art. Certainly not his twisted, “an eye in the head and one on the shoulder” type of crap. I loved his 3d stuff, found the use of everyday objects to create different forms inventive and sensitive, but I am not only unmoved, but rather irritated by the pretentiousness of most of his paintings.
The friend who invited me to visit the museum is an arts graduate and I was made yo feel like an ignorant nincompoop for expressing my views.
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Forgot to add: I find Picasso’s obsession with depicting exaggerated and rather pornographic genitalia, both male and female, quite disgusting and telling of the man. He must have been a very unpleasant person.
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A sex obsessed provincial and a very talented businessman- He made millions selling garbage to Parisian socialites-
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If I was lucky enough to own a Picasso,i would sell it asap.It dont do nothing for me.Its total shit to look at.A chimp with a paint bucket could come up with better.Never been able to understand why he was considered so fantastic.Art sucks anyway.Rembrandt was probably one of the best painters.At least his stuff look like pictures of something
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went to him in rotterdam, his easrlier work…i.e. classical trained stuff was average to say the least, a tad better than hitler and john lennons horse and cowboy, saw a piece of pablo in lublin poland, a crude blue painted hand on a small plate (real saucer btw : D ) worth 10-000 euro ……..the guy cannot paint whatsoever but clever enough to dupe the antique roadshow industry into treating him with respect, van gogh or trechtikoff are true artist he is a jumbo fake :O crappity crap would rather sit through opera 🙂
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my spelling is atrocious…was a tad excited that i am not the only one who thinks different from mainstream pee 🙂 thanks Max ❤
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I like your post. I found Picasso’s painting to be a mixture of so many rough things I used to draw in boring lectures while keeping in mind a scene of war. The other painting, it looked much better than the Picasso’s, but no way I would ever pay anything more than a few bucks for that either. None of them looked a million times better than the ordinary paintings we buy for a small sum. I understand there is a market for art, people having so much extra money and not knowing where to blow it, try to find new ways to spend it. Then there are people who can see that market available and see all that as a great opportunity to make huge money. For sure, somebody is making good money when something crap is selling for fortunes, but then somehow the buyers also calculate its value in the market and in a way, diversify their wealth. This continues for decades, and hype continues to build, the more ancient a things gets, another factor adds to its value in the market and more hype adds up. A thing gets popular and whether somebody thinks its worth it or criticizes it, both adds to its market value as in the process, it gets even more famous.
Hype hype hype everywhere, plays a huge role in the businesses where masses are involved, especially in the businesses where things just cannot be defined properly, such as art.
For e.g., movies like Titanic, it was okay, according to me, nothing like so grand the way it is projected everywhere, a ship broke, so what, it was so grand, so what, romantic scene, fucking scene, so much stuff, naked painting scene, whatever, it was just like any other ordinary movie, and similar stuff.
Be it Taj Mahal, I have been there, my expectations just got shattered when I found it to be just another good looking structure. It is not that ancient either. Epitome of love and bullcrap. I find any modern mall to be more pleasing to eyes than it. Some huge bungalows are far more beautiful than that. It is good in a way, but like wonder of the world? If you talk about how old is it, it is not much old actually. There are so many structures that are far more ancient than that.
Same goes wid lady gagas music, born this way, bad romance. I have listened far better music by totally unknown people. Its lyrics, okay make some sense that you accept yourself the way you are, but anthem for the young generation? It is nothing extraordinary and music is also like, nothing so melodious or anything, but HYPE? Yes so big…
Same goes with Bollywood flicks like Sholay, DDLJ and stuff.. Oh silver jubilee of a movie. These movies were fine, actually somebody may not like them, but HYPE, so much..
All these businesses seem to be running on hype and what they offer is so much overrated..
Nothing profits like HyPe I guess.. Maybe Hype is the best marketing strategy somebody can employ, if he knows how to do it right. Afterwards, its people themselves who will continue debating forever, whether it is worth it or not, but both will contribute to its popularity and in a way make it worthy, atleast in the market.
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Picasso type ” art” is a disease. He was a handicap in correct drawing ( impressionist style) so as many others. Not even one time he was able to draw an impressionist style correctly. Jealousy naturally started this ( expressionist style) and majority who can’t draw started to bravo him as a representation of their inabilities. When you can’t and you don’t even want to improve, it is a disease that needs care by a psychologist. This is not an art but piece of utter rubbish advertised for many subconscious as well as monetary reasons.
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It’s funny seeing all the morons here argue about what hideous crap is art and what’s not. In reality you all are pretentious mocha drinking douchebags who know nothing about the beauty of life other than your expensive trips to Europe, only to waste it on Museums watching hideous paintings of all those talentless nobodies who only became a thing because death put them out of their misery. You, just like them, are useless and create fake prices for craps on canvas. So these “discussions” are as useless as your “taste for art”.
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Maybe they just live in europe, 😞 IDK. I mean, for example, I am Spanish. English is a very universal language.
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So glad you joined us ‘morons’. You certainly seem qualified – perhaps a little over qualified.
Hope your mocha didn’t get cold while typing…
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Ilem, your so correct XD
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As a person who’s actually been in a country with National Service, I can say that my experience was more like Guernica than the Sargent, although it had bits of both.
Since your critique of the Guernica has so much verbal ambiguities, I figure I should clear it up.
“cartoon characters” can be applied from anything between Mickey Mouse to the dense compositions of the animation group Gekidan Inu Curry. So, really, it doesn’t provide any informative value.
“grace, subtlety and flair of a eight year old scrawling” is just plain wrong, because scrawling implies a lack of composition closer to stuff like Twombly and Basquiat. The only things that are really scrawled are the horses tails, and maybe the hands.
Sargent’s painting is definitely a good one. The composition of the center is clear, almost like the flat-plane of a greek mural, and you can see all of the figures clearly and distinctly. Yet he’s able to do that and juxtapose it to the field of lying bodies, as well as the murky poisoned sky.
Guernica’s center is the figure of the horse, which is the messiest part of the drawing. Above that is the lightbulb that doubles as an eye. But you can see the other components of the diagram positioned properly, like the grieving mother, the bull, the face coming with the light, the figure with his hands raised up in the air. And Picasso’s able to do that while working in monochrome with stark color hues.
Part of this, of course, comes from putting the figures in clear black-white arrangements. The effect is opposite Sargent, which is that you see chaos first because your gaze focuses on the center, then the image becomes clearer. Sargent wanted you to see the figures first before focusing on the surrounding clutter.
Furthermore, even in that clutter, Picasso can still set up a triangle in the center, which runs down the side of the white space from the bulb, and then uses the lying figure on the floor as the base. The three figures are caught into the horse, by the way they’re facing, as well as the triangle. Next, the horse’s body becomes clear, because you start at the face, which is parallel to the triangular light, and it shifts. Then you look at the tail, which tells you where everything is. The middle is also the only part in the picture where Picasso has the horse’s fur down, which creates both the effect of fur and one of those cartoon clouds which Disney likes to use showing a scuffle.
So Sargent has a level one – level two of visual perception. Walking figures clearly, then those lying down.
Picasso has so many levels that your eye shifts in and out of it. Apparent chaos, the figures, the geometric structure like the triangle, the animal motifs caught into the human forms. While Sargent captures the somber mood better, Picasso’s faces are better at hysteria, because he knows exactly what type of face to draw, dissarraying the eyes with the most screwed up figures.
Yet to call Sargent better composed, is really fucking stupid. They put equal thought in the composition, but Picasso’s is harder to see. I’ve looked through so many Modern Artists that come after him, and little could pull it off as well as Picasso, structuring the color and the figures and all that. Stupid people think that the crap Modern artists that come after Picasso are the same as Picasso because they see the same general chaos, Everyone can see a Monet and understand that its beautiful, although they can’t explain that Monet uses like so many variations of paint and brushstrokes to achieve his light effects. On the other hand, it’s a lot harder to explain Picasso because you have to cut behind the surface to see the many levels he set up for you to see. Like the Mandolin and the Guitar, which hides a face behind it.
I always think that Picasso and Dali are the barriers to distinguish between the true people who get it, and the people who only understand the base foundations, or the people who follow fads and want to see a ‘new vision’ without knowing what they’re seeing. If you can’t tell the difference between these two and the other derivative hacks that abused their style, and the masses that just follow the trends, then your critical senses are shoddy.
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COLOUR, WHAT COLOUR? Have you even seen Guernica?!?!?!?!
But I suppose you don’t need to, do you. From your oft repeated linkage of someones failure to see what you see and their STUPIDIY, I can tell that you’re one of those CLEVER people that can tell ‘true’ art from what the rest of us poor uninitiated fools mistake for art. And althought you’ve never picked up a brush in your life, you don’t need to, do you? Nah, you’ve ‘looked’ at loads of it. You’ve STUDIED it. Learnt its innermost SECRETS from ART EXPERTS. The fact that those ART EXPERTS have also never picked up a brush (except maybe to dust under the sofa) is irrelavent – they didn’t need to either! They STUDIED art from other ART EXPERTS who also LOOKED at LOADS of ART.
If you think Picasso or Dali’s work is the benchmark for great art, and anyone who can’t ‘see’ that must be ‘stupid’, then your critical senses are blinded by your conceit.
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Noo! Picasso is pure trash, Dali is genius and he truly made good pieces He is different. So am I.
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SHIT chinjianxiong you consider Picasso to be of the Dali’s level? Can not be man… What happened in your life saying that? It is so sad, you put so much shame on Dali. Dali deserves only the very best! I wish I can remove that comment.
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Art pieces like these (Picassos) only have their hyper values, because of the same cahoots (critics) who make their living alongside cons like Picasso, et al. The minions who got ahead in life are virtually all of the same breed – con artists, and they are the ones who would swallow hook-line-sinker the carefully crafted adjectives surrounding these thrash. There they are, in that hall of shams, mingling in sham-pain and cock-tales, gobbling thrash among themselves.
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The views above are a great relief after painful and disturbing experience of visiting Picassour museum at Barcelona.
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What forced you so much that you end up in that shit?
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Art as “art” and as a store of value are two different things entirely. Maybe that’s why no one bothers spending hundreds of hours crafting something universally beautiful anymore.
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Picasso and modern art in general. Fake. Utter shit.
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The John Sargent piece is very well painted, but it’s boring. The Picasso piece draws your attention, and invites your imagination. That being said, it’s not very good, but probably his best work. Like someone else mentioned, Picasso is a brand. The name is what sells the art. The art itself is little more than what a creative child can create. Add him to the list of over hyped artists like Warhol and Basquiat.
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Thank you man! I thought I was the only one thinking like this. Picaso is a discgrace to art in general, and it’s one of the most ugly and confusing things a human being can look at. Peace
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PICASSO IS SIMPLY NOT RELATED TO ART. ITS JUST RUBBISH AND HOGWASH. IF YOU CONTRADICT THIS YOUR DEFINITION OF ART IS ULTIMATELY UGLY.
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The art style that you are referring to was, in that time considered a rebellion of what was considered art. The idea was to express thoughts and feelings The point was to express yourself since minds don’t form full masterpieces, they form thoughts and random memories to make sense of the world. There is however no true definition of “art” as what you may consider “crap” I may think the total opposite. Dada art such as this where literally defining it as anti-art.
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DADA may have been anti-art at its conception – but they soon found a way to sell it like anyother.
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when you are able to create what you consider a “masterpiece” then you opinion would have merit until then please don’t criticize others.
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I like your thinking Emma – even if you don’t appear follow it yourself. Fortunately I meet your criteria for criticism – which would certainly stop 99.9% of the worlds ART critics from opening their mouths… if not all of them.
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shut up dork.
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Recently i learned that people in the “art” industry nowadays define “art” as “the way the art-maker (a.k.a. “the artist”) makes himself known”. Therefore, there’s no art-in-itself in this industry anymore, there’s just prestige. And there’s no value-in-itself in it anymore, there’s just the resell-value.
Take the fashion shows: are there more than 1% of the contraptions worn along the catwalk worthy to look at, nevermind be called “creations”? nevertheless, they’re all overhyped and overpriced. The “interior design conventions” in Milano are just the same.
“Art” of the last century is just the same: piles of rubbish, with huge pricetags attached.
All this can be traced back to the loss of standards. Before modernism, people believed in higher-than-us standards: be it a god, the nature, science, or whatever else OUTSIDE of us. Modernism was brought about by the crapthought that “the world is a mere artefact of my mind”. This isn’t even deifying man, it’s deifying lunacy. Hence, there was nothing better, there was no beauty, there was just the nothingness. And this can be traced back to the crapthought that “we are the apex of the world, and ultimately the world doesn’t matter, only our “souls” do”. Enter soulless people nesting on huge piles of money, inflating the resell-value of whatever crap they found suitable for the “embetterment of mankind”. Just because this seems to be their calling, they being so chosen.
So, let’s be honest. We are guilty of overthinking. Picasso doesn’t actually exist as art. It’s just a money depository. There’s no art there. There was never nothing to like there, for anybody. It’s a cultural trend, just like changing sex every other season. Just like ADHD. “Modern art” is just a thing that the very wealthy pass around simply because they have acquired thousands of times more money than their worth. What else could they spend them on?
Obviously, they being “superiorly endowed”, they might find intrinsic value where we only find crap. Whatever. It’s just hilariously absurd that people not part of this pool-of-self-inflating-money, some commenting here, have “educated” themselves to elaborate reasons to feel-what-the-rich-feel. If you’re in the business of reselling crap to wealthy morons, then you should indulge yourself in this nonsense, for you need to know the lie trade ; otherwise, you’re just fooling yourselves.
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There was a loss of standards in art, the question is why? The answer to that is Photography.
Before photography artists had a very practical purpose, indeed they were a monopoly. Art was the only way to visually record reality or make a visual representation of fantasy.
Photography was a new, improved, cheaper, quicker way to make images of reality. Its effect was a crisis of confidence and increasingly desperate attempts to re-assert itself by going places photography couldn’t, hence abstraction, concept, performance, installation etc. etc. etc. In short – bollocks.
Other Arts followed but never to the same degree, they hadn’t been replaced by new technology as art has.
Computers have now removed artists (by artists I mean painters and sculptors) last remaining use, by doing for fantasy what photography did to reality.
Hey-Ho.
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yes, the photographer’s art partly replaced the painter’s art, as it had means and ways painting can never get to. Though nowadays there is a russian guy who paints on canvas in such a way that one cannot possibly tell his paintings apart from some finely photoshopped photos – unless he gets very close to see the grain. So it’s not just the accuracy. Yes, the classics did their best to achieve lifelike details in their art. This was part of the craft, until photography came about.
Then, the classics also strived to convey feelings and meaning through their art. That is : things and emotions that normal people value, such as beauty, admiration, love, honour, sacrifice, greatness, melancholy, piety, even sorrow, and so on. This is trivial, but i’m trying to get to a point here : what emotions does one feel when looking at the mid-age and late works of Picasso? none of the above, actually ; instead, his works convey loathing, pain, ugliness, disease, and a total lack of caring towards the subjects. So one can safely assume these were the feelings the artist himself had towards them. Then, why would a sain artist paint things and persons he feels no simpathy towards? Even in Guernica, i see no trace of any feelings towards the fallen ; there’s just the “atrocity of war”, the fallen are soulless, they’re not individuals, they’re just parts of the “horror mechanism”. Oh yes, the legend goes that Picasso loved many persons and many things and painted them all. As i see it, there was just Olga, and then there was nothing, just play pretend.
So the basic fault, thus the main thing driving people away from Picasso’s and other modern artists’ works, is just this: bad feelings. Art is a manifest, for whatever arguments and ideologies, cultural or political, only to pathological leftists. For everybody else, art is supposed to make things better, to make us feel, to remind us of our human values. It’s not what you paint: brothel girls, a slaughterhouse, an urinal, a pile of tincans, or just a plain blob of paint ; it’s what the artist, then the beholder feels about that subject. Obviously, it’s hard to imagine one could have any feelings towards a plain blob. However, it’s the artist’s job to make the beholders feel ; if he fails, his work fails to be art ; if he manages to convey bad feelings, then that’s bad art. Bad art.
And there’s no shade of grey here, none whatsoever.
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Art is broad. It is OK to like or dislike an artist ,not criminal.. not a sin. I promise no matter how long people debate about it, they will not convince everyone that their views are the correct ones. So it does annoy me to see “wrong” or “not true”. Art and societies views on art change all the time.. However our societies views on art always seem to be tied to how affluent people feel about particular pieces and artists themselves. At some point I hope that we will accept and encourage different points of view. Art should be about expression. If someone even one person enjoys my art, my creativity, my expression.. call me a happy man. If someone hates it, I wouldn’t be bothered it is still my expression and by extension me. Now when a person sees my art and says “ well this isn’t for me, but I’ll tell you what I do like..I’ll tell you what inspires me”. Then and only then when that response is a respected one.. We all win.
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Hey, whoa there big fella calm down, calm down! The war’s over and you won, remember?
Every major city has fallen to you. The world is as you say it is. The revolutionary ideals you fought for are universally accepted as undeniable truth. Now everyone has the right to make Great Art – regardless of ability. An overwhelming victory against seemingly impossible odds – and reality!
You should be proud.
Congratulations.
Yet it seems something still troubles you.
Maybe you feel that if even one village in your empire dares hold even a single exhibition of ‘mere representational’ art, the wars is not yet won?
Relax! If there’s still a little resistance in the remote hills – who cares! – they’re petty-bourgeois provincial peasants unable to accept defeat or see the New Reality. No one listens to them anymore, they are despised by the good, the great and the clever. And besides, they’ll soon be starved out by your brilliant scorched-earth policy. Forget them!
Or maybe some of the more outrageous war crimes committed in your name still bother you- just a little?
Don’t let them! What if Generalissimo Picasso was a little er… ‘over enthusiastic’ at Guernica – well, he was only following orders wasn’t he? And as everyone knows now (if not then) war is ugly; inevitably there are casualties. The well deserved punishment for Realists is to end up as a barely recognisable tangle of body parts with their eyeballs on the side of they’re heads. Let such atrocities stand as a warning to all those who oppose the forces of Modernism!
Nope, you can sleep easy. There’s no need to seek permission or approval; to justify, explain or apologise to anyone, anymore. You won. You are the establishment.
I accept that.
Just don’t ask me to respect it.
Vers le bas avec le Salon-Nouveau! Vive la résistance!
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Having lost his vision at the age of 2, Billy underwent a miraculous surgical procedure that restored his sight just a month ago, two weeks shy of his 20th birthday. He has never heard anyone speak about art, or mention any famous artist.
Billy is now at the dentist’s waiting room, where he picks up a book full of images of paintings. There are no captions, no names of the artists, no dates, nothing. Just the images, only text. It would not matter anyway, since Billy has not learned to read yet.
The pages are full of works by Da Vinci, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Goya, Delacroix, Monet, Degas, Pollock, Miro, Picasso, Dali, Warhol. The works are not arranged in any particular order. They are totally random: The first page may contain a Miro, and the next a Rembrandt
Billy has been subjected to zero cultural conditioning. Nobody has ever told him what he is supposed to like, or dislike.
I wonder how much attention would Billy pay to, say, a Miro, any Miro, when the opposite page has Delacroix’s “Greece on the Ruins of the Missolonghi.” On second thought, that’s not fair, because of the cleavage. Let’s say “The View of Delft” by Vermeer next to any Jackson Pollock.
Sometimes what we call “education” is nothing more than cultural conditioning. To me, what matter is the end product, and whether I like it. So Michelangelo spent a bunch of years perched on scaffolds to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Irrelevant. So Beethoven was almost deaf when he composed some of his greatest works. Irrelevant.
Yes, I do get the point of representational art having lost some of its purpose with the advent of photography. Any schmuck with an iPhone can take a picture as breathtaking as “The View of the Delf” by pressing a button. But Picasso still sucks. The main reason why people think (or say they think) he’s great is because they have been conditioned.
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you guys are brainwashed to think a certain way, Picasso was absolute garbage , same with Van Gough and that bastard who painted soup cans
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Have you tested your IQ? Like do you understand math and other not so simple things?
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Class A trolling!
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Escher is way better than Picasso, and yet Escher’s art has an abstract quality that I like.
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Picasso’s art is not art, but it is utter crap, just like every other cubist and badly scribbled trash that gets paraded as “art”, when they’re not even worth a Fart. Even a two year old kid, no, wait, even a mangy mongrel with a paintbrush would draw better than that cubist crap. Pic-Ass-O didn’t know to draw shit, and I don’t give a rat’s posterior whether someone wants to pay millions for a piece of shit, for a piece of shit is still a piece of shit even if someone’s ready to buy it for a lot of money. And we all know there are people who’d market and sell shit for the money, for there are fools who fall for the hype and buy such crap.
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The map Cubism in the game BTD6 is good art, in spite of the name, lol.
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Cubism? Picasso wasn’t the best at it thats for sure. Some of them look good and look like they have skill involved, Metzinger etal.
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An absolute hack of an artist. I have never seen any of his works that makes go wow. His apparent genius was basically copying off other artists of the period (Matisse for example) and changing it a bit. There is a great treatise of his band-wagon jumping in the belle époque era and its absinthe craze which inspired many artists. He was jonny come lately who copied ideas from others. Guernica gets hyped because it is about ghastly war. It is meant to look all mad and crazy, like war, but it reality it is a jumbled mess with zero emotional value. As you say, something a child might draw in class when told to interpret war.
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I don’t know who you are and what makes you willing to do that, however you have all my solidarity.
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To bring out childishness in the paintings is about being honest inwards. Elevating child-like naivete to be able to stand for something is a great act, especially for the times he lived in. It separates the old world from the new. He was novel for his time and a good role-model for breaking the borders of acceptability, and actually winning that struggle in an otherwise conservative time! Without having won this struggle we would not have so much new media. Cubism with its homage to civilization coming from Africa is also a great contribution. Picasso leads an interesting life being on the good side of change in his life as in his art, trying to make a positive influence on the world also a socialist.
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“Elevating child-like naiveté to be able to stand for something is a great act,…”
Really?
If elevating child-like naivete is so great, don’t we elevate it in other disciplines? Why is it only modern art where child-like ideas and execution are not only accepted, but lauded?
Where are the bridges designed with wax crayon and built out of cardboard tubes and sellotape? Where are the surgeons using plastic scissors doing pretend triple heart by-pass operations? Where are the defence lawyers arguing a mans innocence on the grounds that ‘he just is so there with knobs on and no returns’?
The pursuit of novelty started by Turner and followed people like Picasso who know a gravy train when they see one, became a race to the bottom, where dogs turds are sold as art and where people like you are complicit by telling the rest of us how stupid we are not to see how clever that is.
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I see his works painted on bridges of concrete and on the side of train cars daily created by cans of spray paint and kids who think they are in a gang……..too bad he never painted a twisted can of Tomato soup with his Surrealism or cubism.
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Picasso calls the Lumumba portrait kitsch. The western left wants Dave Chappelle dead. Picasso is cancel culture. Thick skinned comedy is real art. Cancel culture is assassination.
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The Embrace is is the new Picasso. More crap.
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The Embrace is the new Picasso. The Embrace is abstract sculpture. Picasso would approve of the Embrace, today. From some angles, the Embrace looks pornographic. The pedo agenda and woke art are intimately connected. The Embrace is more Picassoesque crap.
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I would agree, Picasso art is crap.
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