h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As I said on another thread, I've never really 'got' Picasso. I've seen some of his supposedly great paintings in a couple of European museums (it was a long time ago and I cannot remember the titles, the museums nor even the countries in which I saw them). Some huge gert thing taking up practically 1 wall of a gallery and a few more modest pieces anyway.

So, what exactly is Picasso all about, why are his paintings thought to be so good when they look like they're a) a bit amateurish or unfinished and b)trying too hard to be different?

(btw, posted cos Edward the Bonobo suggested I make it a seperate thread)

I kind of feel the same way. I don't see what's so impressive about them, but I feel pretty sure it's because I'm missing something.
I've heard Picasso's work referred to as "cubism" but it looks nothing like cubic. What chracteristic of cubes are they meant to be exhibiting?

Looking forward to seeing what Ed has to say. Personally, I'm a huge Picasso fan, I love all that layered time and multiple perspectives stuff, but no time to write anything more right now (dratted work!). Hey Ed (when you turn up) - did you ever read what David Hockney has written about cubism? It's a pretty interesting take on it, especially to compare to his own photocollage work.

Could it be a case of the King's clothes?
A lot of people think it is a load of nads but don't want to seem uncool by saying it?

I think this link would be a good introduction to understand Art in general

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/lecture3.shtml

from it. "art is about deliberate hyperbole, exaggeration, in fact even distortion in order to create pleasing effects in the brain"

"pleasing" not always. In the example you have mentioned in the other thread, The Guernica, the distorsion was to highlight the effects of the war, etc.
It impresses deeply.
You can read a glorious crafted text against the war, in general, or watch that painting


...

Yes I'm not a huge fan these days. he's just too intensely Modernist for me. A bit like how I've gone off the perfection of Bach.

I do remember as child though, drawing tractors from side on, and giving them 4 wheels somehow, ina very strange way, because I 'knew' they had 4 wheels, even though you couldn't see them side on. I told an artist about this, in later life. She said, 'Oh that's just Cubism, you were doing.'

When you look at "a Picasso" you're seeing one point in time of his development as an artist. It's not a good way to see it, but it's the way most people experience art.

I once went to a Picasso exhibition at, of all places, Croydon town hall. Now, the London Borough of Croydon isn't the wealthiest of places, so they couldn't really mount a "classic" exhibition. Instead, they begged, borrowed or otherwise rented a series of drawings, early works, sketches, books, and the occasional "important" work (probably on loan from the National). It gave an in-depth look at Picasso's work, the development from representational works into "blue", then "cubism", and there forward. It was much better than "seeing a Picasso" in an art gallery.

You may have heard tales about him paying for his dinner by drawing a picture on the tablecloth. One thing I took from that exhibition is: the man can DRAW! He can capture the essence of something in a line. (A particular memory is a pen-and-ink outline of a donkey. It was, quite simply, "essence of donkey" in a single line.)

So let's not dismiss the greatest artist of the 20th century quite so glibly. Go and find out what he did, apart from the "les demoiselles D'Avignon".

RF

My favorite Picasso was a non-cubist one. I can't remember the name, it was of a person stood up in a boat/canoe type thing and might have someone crouched down on a jetty.Curs'ed weed.

I'd say the greatest artist of the 20th century was James Turrell.

" when you look at a Picasso you're seeing one point in time of his development as an artist"


Picasso studies and experiences all the artistic vanguards of his time, which is to say the art of the 20th century. He also was catched by African art, mainly the masks. Actually, he was chatched by any artistic manifestation. He gave his "flavour" to everything he painted, sculpted, etc.
I think that his art is like that of a great chef, they take tradition, investigate, innovate... and create.
He knew all the technics of his art, past and present ones.

My teacher of Chinesse Writing ( a pity it was only a year) told us that if Picasso were Chinesse he would have been a great caligraph artist. He said that abstraction is the basis for Chinesse writing and that abstraction is the final step of an artist who has practiced every thing about art.
I will know someday what my teacher meant, now I'm not too sure.

>> I'd say the greatest artist of the 20th century was James Turrell. <<

And you're entitled to your opinion. However, I had to google him to find out who he was. I bet you didn't have to google "Picasso".

RF

I like Picasso. To dismiss him as the 'King's New Clothes' displays a staggering ignorance.

I have seen a painting that was nothing more than a canvas of pure blue and it was one of the most captivating paintings I've ever fallen into. There is an installation piece at Tate Modern that consists of a rusty girder placed in the wall several feet above a large lump of granite: it's a wonderful piece. I'm a slut for Turner, am partial to a Monet or two, not averse to a bit of Rothko (though I'm narked by the recent appearance of Rothko prints left, right and center), was staggered by the depth of the first Pollox I saw in the flesh (how the hell does an artist move the emotions with something so superficially random?), still dig Canaletto (I know it's literal and lacking in artistic merit, but who cares when it's that well executed? Beautiful stuff) and still enjoy Dali.

There are artists that grab the soul rather than the eye. The world is a better place for them.

Someone who thinks a canvas simply painted blue is fantastic is perhaps someone who would fall for the kings new clothes trick.....

SS, I'd already gathered you have no sense of humour but you just proved yourself ignorant too.

Well done sir.

Picasso had out paced his art teacher by the time he was 14.He was a genius who used a very long life to explore different avenues and was prepared to experiment with all media.I'd take him over Damien Hirst any day.

My favourite picture is of Olga Piccasso.It's a straight picture and absolutely beautiful.I'm also rather fond of his Lady in a Chemise and the one of Femme nude 1 is fantastically simple but beautiful .I also like his cubist portrait of Ambroise Vollard..it's excellent.

Sometimes I think that if you have to have a piece of art (i hate to call them installations, but sometimes that is exactly the right word) or sculpture or something - then it is missing the point.

Other times (usually when I'm actually surrounded by the stuff) it speaks to me and I wonder how someone can do that through a bit of oil on canvas (or in one of my favourite's way: two eggs on two bar stools)

I can appreciate a Cannelletto (sp?) for the lines, as much as I can look at a Jackson Pollock and think "blimey! that looks so alive". Dali, say what you like about melting clocks, was just so brilliant (as much, if not more so, as the impressionists) at painting light, and his draughtsmanship is second to none. The Temptation of St Anthony is on my wall (well, not the original) and I look at it every day and after about 20 years of it i am not bored.

picasso - well, I don't really like the blue stuff, but the shades and tones of the cubist work are just so... indescribable. It's easy to look at one of his pieces, or a miro and think "bah, a 5 year old could do that". Well, they can't. Although they would have a good stab at it, I suspect.

Now the impressionists... apart from the light thing, I just don't get them at all.

The problem is Roymondo is there is no skill in painting a canvas blue and anyone can do it, for someone to then pay a great deal of money for it is indeed the kings new clothes in action. The problem is if you gave me the same blue paint and canvas I could do the same painting. However take for instance any painting in say Windsor Castle I could not paint it as don't have the skill required.

DUCK EGG!

I've got Turrell's syndrome.

I remember reading that cubism was apparently inspired by the scientific idea of extra dimensions. If a creature existed in four spatial dimensions, it would be able to see objects like us from all sides at the same time, giving rise to the weird perspectives you see in cubism.

SS, you obviously have no appreciation of aesthetic value beyond the difficulty of creating a piece. Good art does not rely on great skill: good art is art that can move you, regardless of technical ability. Having said that, the blue square in question was technically perfect, and that's why it worked. It moved me. You might not appreciate it, and that's fair enough, but to dismiss it as 'The King's New Clothes' just because it doesn't float your boat is demonstrative of ignorance. I really do not like Celine Dion's music but would never deny that she is a fantastic singer. You don't like conceptual art. Fair enough, but our respective artistic taste can be no measure of the artistic merit of a piece. Things that have moved me wouldn't move you, and there will be things that have moved you that don't move me.