Friday, May 23, 2008


I draw like other people bite their nails.
Pablo Picasso

4 comments:

Cécile said...

I'm not sure this is the best thing he ever said. You know, I actually do not like Picasso - at all.
To me his paintings feel unplaisant, not as far as style or subject, but just in the way I feel them inside. They feel arid, un-generous to me, they make me thirsty - for kindness.
It's strange to know he somehow compared them to eaten bits of nails!

IstvanBloggin' said...

Picasso had an attitude, we could say that he was arrogant. He liked to mock the public. Once he said: If I spit, they will take my spit and frame it as great art.:)
But also i think he was the most productive artist of the 20th century with a huge opus of works, and a lot of powerful masterpieces (Guernica, bulls head, weeping woman, cubist portraits...).
I like him because his art was like some continuous experiment. He never stopped changing, always new in a way, he was fresh as an artist even in his old days.
But still,I personally like his early work the most, the blue and the rose period. These works are maybe more intimate, in a way confessions, while i find the other periods more experimental in a way.

Cécile said...

Hi Thinker
I like his blue period too, and some stuff of the pink period; I also like some of his late drawings, especially those he did with ink.
Weirdly enough, my father used to be a summer friend of Picasso's daughter, they played volley ball together every year on the beach in Cannes. My grand mother used to say: "Voilà Picasso et ses pique-assiettes!" (Here come Picasso and his pique-assiettes, ie, those who steal food from his plate); he was also a victim of his own success I guess. But somehow I wonder if he was not more some kind of a business man than he was an artist. Of course I'm not saying he was not an artist... but. To me he was what Madonna is today to music, some one who feels a little ahead what will be the next big thing.
(Gosh in a history of art class I could be killed for comparing him to Madonna!)
:)

IstvanBloggin' said...

I like your comparison with Madonna, Picasso really was a celebrity and a skilled business man at the same time.
And i think he really enjoyed being a star.
Have a pleasant weekend Cécile!