Did someone say have I gone crazy? How dare I? Why don't I leave our great artist alone.
In reply, may I say this. Should we go through life accepting everything from an artist just because he is world class? Let me have a non-populist opinion here and ask why do we have to
Let me explain my viewpoint. If God gives you a great talent, should you not use it in his service? Or do you use this gift to protect you from public attack while you flaunt your evil attitude and hurt the people around you?
I felt strongly that I should write about Picasso's dark side and not gloss over it merely because he was a master of colours and forms.
I'll go one step further. If someone would one day come to me and eagerly say "hey, there's a Picasso art exhibition in town, let's go and see it" I'd say "no, not me" and for that, I'd give the following reasons:
Picasso (an adopted name, by the way), began painting in Spain doing many bull fight scenes, at first. After his "blue" period, he went to Montmartre in Paris and soon had many well known artists and a poet or two working in his Bateau Lavoir studio. They formed the so-called Bande Picasso. It included artists such as Modigliani, Max Ernst, Chagall, Diego Rivera, Chaim Soutine, Derain as well as the poet Max Jacob.
Picasso went through many stages of development and, at 24, was already famous for his cubistic art style. He and George Braque, had both become famous in this art form.
During this period, he lived with Fernande and later with a poet's girlfriend, Eva. He then married Olga, a dancer ot the Diaghelev Ballet. She bore him a son Paul. This was the only time that he married one of his woman. However, they were soon divorced.
Later he had affairs with Dora Maar and Marie Theresa Walter. Although Marie gave him a daughter Maya in 1935, he did not marry her.
Then he lived with a very good artist named Franscoise, who gave birth to Claude (1947) and Paloma (1949). She left him in a foul mood and wrote a very unflattering book about him in which she was the first to publicly reveal his cruel streak, to the world.
This was about the time, when he began to distort the objects in his paintings even more than he had done before. He also began to fracturing them and place them in unusual positions.
It is doubtful that he ever loved any of his women, except perhaps for Eva and Marie, whom he may have loved but in a way of his own. In spite of this "love", he never signed any of the paintings that he gave to Marie and as a result of that, she lived in poverty, in spite of having a stack of potentially invaluable Picasso originals kept in a store. He had deliberately kept back from signing them to keep them unmarketable. This was just one more of his many cruel and spiteful actions.
By now Picasso had begun to paint men and women in the most disgusting positions. It was also the time when he was fascinated by satanic looking minotaurs.
Painter yes. Great graphical artist, yes. Master of composition, yes. But in his nature, he was egotistical to the extreme with a very cruel streak. He, for example, left no will behind and in so doing left family and dependents destitute.
Furthermore, he did not let his children have his name and would not even let them into his house.
Here are some of the disasters and tragedies that he left behind.
Marie and Jacqueline both committed suicide. Dora ended her life in a mental asylum.
His grandson, Pablito, drank poison when he finally realised that he had been disowned. Picasso did this although his son was truly of his bloodline heritage.
In the painting, by the post-impressionistic artist Margaret, shown here, the following cruel aspects of Picasso are highlighted:
Dora Maar is crouching in the background, obviously quite insane.
Francoise, in the role of a picador, is wounding Picasso in the cheek. This is a reference to Picasso burning her cheek with a cigarette while in Paris.
The horns of Picasso, the bull, have pierced the body of Marie.
His hoof is pushing agonisingly into the stomach of Fernande.
In the foreground, he's using Jacqueline as a floor mop.
In the painting on the back wall, Eva is shown in death.


Comments: 22
Thanks for this look into the life of this artist.
Anyway, no, I would not attend a Picasso show either.
Now Carl Larsson - that's someone who painted with love!
Art is something that lies deep down inside of you. It's in your genes and you do know what you like or not.
What I kind of despise, is the very intellectual art that Picasso did. I can imagine him saying why not a square here and what about a face with a jagged edge there?
Wriiting, poetry and painting should come from the heart. Even a painting, by an eight year old, who has only the joy of live inside her, can paint beautifully.
You are so right. He didn't have that loving eye. This is such a pity as he could have been a gret artist, judging by his most early works.
Yes, let's go to other people's art shows. Ah Carl Larson? I'm going to look him up and then I'll talk to you about him.
Should I say how many restaurants and hotel rooms Dali and his dear Gala destroyed? And how he made fun of every single soul? But he was past talented, such a gifted artist working only for commercial goals?!
Diego Rivera himself had a catastrophic life, and Frieda Kahlo's sexual habits were quite unusual, so they say. And even though her painting makes me sick I can sense and understand there's so much talent in the hand which made those strokes under the most terrible pain a body can bear.
The list is never ending.
I love Picasso's yellow and blue periods. Unfortunately my beloved Wagner was a beastly person, full of hatred, close to a murderer. He would have been a nazi had he lived in Hitler's time, but God, his music turns me on!
Art is something that goes right to your heart (when it's real), it stabs you. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it uplifts you. But always, and this happens every single time you FEEL what you hear/see/experience, it always changes you.
That's the way I experience art. I may like things most people don't. I might share some people's taste. But I cannot judge a work of art by a person's life. This would mean that there would be no art left for me to experience. 99% of the world's artists' population has always been passionate, crazy (just go through Van Gogh's life, Beethoven was always furious, and isn't his music Godly?!).
We might be entering a different dimension currently. But up to now, genious has usually been born out of the need to change everything, and that need has gone against society, that false structure which has never wanted changes, so frightened when somebody became a possibility which would refraim people's lives.
You bury Picasso in your life, not in mine. You can only bury me because nobody has ever met me in that world nor will I leave anything behind me when I'm gone. But Picasso and many others like him, mirror our lives in some way or other. I think you are too partial about him.
One more thing. Some women love to be treated that way. Women looked for him, he didn't look for them. I don't believe in victims, you need at least two people to start a war. One starts it and the other allows this to happen.
Just a thought, maybe too long, but it's only a thought in the midst of my smokey fog, of which I'm as responsible as all the rest of the people in this country.
The Press is very fickle. You can get slated for robbing a shop but Mugabe can slaughter millions and it's barely mentioned. Old man Kennedy, sipped tankers full of illicit liquor from Ireland and became the respected father of a President.
In my own country, what gets into the news and what happens in life bears no relationship to each other. That's the sad truth of life, in many countries.
I find that life very interesting. There are so many things happening now and that have happened in the past. Many of them can have an influence on our lives....perhaps good and perhaps bad.
When something persistently comes into my mind, I feel that I should write about it. Of course, if I write about something, Gather is my place of choice.
I feel that if God has given you gifts then one should use it to add to this worls.
Mad dictators, serial killers and beauty destroyers, in general, are dime a dozen.
Only a few are given supreme gifts. Things go wrong when these people, let these divine gifts go to their heads. When they make a superg gift, an maniacal ego booster.
I wanted to point out that meanness, in anybody, should not be glossed over. If some one is mean then let us talk about it. Let'd not tell our children that it's OK to be mean, if the man has a God-given talent.
It's wonderful to see you here. I'm glad that you found something of interest in this article.
Hahaha I am a good conversationalist. Just put a coffee pot near me or a glass of red wine.
I must be fair to Picasso. Some of his work, especially his earlier work, is very good. I've read a lot about all those artists in Paris, Moscow, Italy, South Africa and elsewhere. Most of them had their idiosyncracies but as I read more and more about Pablo, I turned away from him in disgust.
I know that you paint from your soul. I think that everything that you do comes fom your soul. That's why we loe you, Mariana.
Don'tlet me put you off Picasso. Red about him and form your own opinion. All that I can do is point out what I've noticed.
You see, I have this way of investigating matters of interest and then talking about.
Who wants to rad my stuff all the time? There's a whole world out there and we should be aware of it.
Bless you dear.
I feel like getting on airplane and finishing this conversation over many cups of coffee.
The knowledge that you reveal makes me feel that I'm talking to someone who is fully conversant with the subject and other subjects related to world culture. I salute you.
Now let me list my views on some eccentric people:
Be morose and grumpy but write the 7th Symphony…I can make allowances for that.
Smash up furniture but dance like Nijinsky…It's OK allowing for all that adrenalin.
Steal a friend's wife but write Lohengrin's Farewell…Serious but it happened only once.
Never bath but paint Landscapes like Cezanne…Yuk…but we can let that go.
Cut your ear but paint the Night Café…Sheer madness but he loved children.
Become debauched but write like Rimbaud…Thankfully, he left the most beautiful poems
Become a monk after composing Liszt Rhapsodies…Thank you for the music, Franz.
All of the above were idiosyncratic, to say the least, but there was no trace of real horrific evil. They all changed our lives but they didn't expose us to sheer revulsion. Above all, they didn't abuse their families over long periods leading to deaths, suicide and an asylum.
Also, they didn't leave a vast heritage of grotesque art and some obscene views of women, that certainly didn't make me grow nor encourage me on my path to enlightenment.
Yes, his blue and rose periods were wonderful. Later, when he swung to his true love, graphic artistry, he filled viewers with a strange energy. However, in 1907, when he began to paint in the African Voodoo style, his ability to engage the viewer, in a positive way, changed, in my opinion.
That was perhaps the time when his adrenalin and his uber-ego took over and he began to offend rather than lead those who studied his works
Firstname, I came to bury Picasso because I need to have uplifting influences in my life. Who comes to the funeral is another matter. We are all different but we can nevertheless be good friends and share ideas with lively debate and laughter. Vive le difference.
I entered the keywords "beauty" and "artsy" and "smart" and that brought me to an article comment by someone called "firstname". :-) Not exactly the culprit I was looking for but I am glad I found her. She's been missing for weeks. Hey firstname, use our codeword and knock three times on my email. Need to hear from you. I am in a state of despair and need to talk to you privately.