You pays your money …
The name Picasso is so engrained in the world’s psyche that several times during his lifetime, and indeed regularly after it, his reputation has become subject to relentless attack by the forces of reappraisal, revisionism, post-modernism and even those who aspire to the famous ‘with attitude’ reply “Whaddya got?” uttered by motorcycle hoodlum Jonny Stabler (played by Marlon Brando) in the movie The Wild One (1953), upon being asked what exactly he was rebelling against.
More years ago than I care to remember, I once had a polite-ish ruck at the dinner table with the father of a lady I was seeing at the time.
Himself a creative person who had directed advertisements for a living and in his time also developed innovative animation techniques and devices, my opponent held strident views on most – well, all right, all – subjects under the sun.
Somehow the name Picasso came into the conversation.
“A charlatan, completely devoid of creative talent” perhaps would best sum up the view held by my dinner guest, though inevitably it took him about half an hour and a lot of hand-waving and loud verbosity to make his point in his unique and inimitable style.
I took issue with his verdict.
Having a year or so beforehand, in Barcelona at the time, I had visited a museum dedicated to Picasso and been stunned by the versatility, vision and brilliance on display.
On the wall of one of the earliest rooms one entered was a large oil portrait of a lady – an exquisite piece of work, in my uneducated estimation worthy of the brush of any old Master of the 17th or 18th Centuries at the height of his powers.
It had been knocked out by Picasso at the age of just 16. Elsewhere there were room after room of ceramic sculptures and plates upon which – to the determined naysayer – he had laid a half-interested stroke or two of figurative or abstract paint at random, or – if you were of kinder disposition – summed up an object or mood so succinctly and brilliantly that it took your breath away.
I later emerged into the daylight a believer.
Confirmation that I was on the right line came from someone of considerable artistic skill whose judgement on such matters I respect greatly.
One day, chatting, he asked if I’d ever seen Picasso’s line drawings. Not that I’d noticed them particularly, I responded.
He then googled some up on his computer and I was much chastened – they were very impressive indeed, in fact far better than that.
My little discourse above is just a way of introducing this link to an article by Adrian Searle upon the opening of a new Picasso exhibition (Picasso and Paper) at the Royal Academy in London – see here, upon the website of – THE GUARDIAN