[HN Gopher] Picasso's self portrait evolution from age 15 to age 90
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Picasso's self portrait evolution from age 15 to age 90
Author : pmoriarty
Score : 148 points
Date : 2022-05-14 19:39 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (rarehistoricalphotos.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (rarehistoricalphotos.com)
| sabujp wrote:
| The 1st one at 90 is fantastic
| aantix wrote:
| I looked into buying a Picasso once.
|
| Someone on Reddit mentioned that his pottery was lesser known and
| could be obtained for a reasonable amount (10-15K at the time I
| think).
|
| I just thought it would be cool to say that I owned a "Picasso".
| :)
|
| It ended having to read everything I could find online about
| detecting fake vs authentic artwork.
|
| Anything on eBay is (probably) a fake. Anything from the big
| auction houses will have authenticity priced in (makes sense).
|
| I never bought anything.
| s5300 wrote:
| Interesting, but auction houses are historically known who sell
| fakes as authentics (sometimes/often knowingly) & eBay would be
| one of the easiest hiding in plain site for a thief to offload
| his wares...
|
| That said, your comment is probably the true one in reality.
| starwind wrote:
| My favorite is the one he did at 25
| https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/...
|
| Abstract, but not as crazy as the ones he did after he turned 50
| cs702 wrote:
| Wow. The last handful of self-portraits, painted when he was 90,
| capture aging and decay in a way that I find... _powerful_ :
|
| * https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/...
|
| * https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/...
|
| * https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/...
|
| * https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/...
|
| He was near the end of his life when he painted those self-
| portraits.
| duderific wrote:
| The one from June 28, 1972 (your first link) almost made me
| gasp out loud, it has so much force. Unbelievable he was still
| digging so deep at age 90.
| lancesells wrote:
| Agreed. The fingernail nostrils, what looks like "09: or 90
| reversed on the bridge of the nose, the eyeball-ish ear
| canal...
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| whats the difference between these and me scribbling random
| mish mash of curves?
| robofanatic wrote:
| I think you need few master pieces first. Once you are
| established as a great artist then afterwards whatever you
| scribble becomes piece of art.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| I'm eager (honestly) to see your "mish mash of curves" works.
|
| There'll never gonna be "too much" good art.
| fredley wrote:
| As I someone who has studied art a little, try it!
| Appreciation for work of this kind comes quickly when you try
| and emulate it.
| umvi wrote:
| Of course trying to perfectly emulate another human at
| painting is going to be virtually impossible. You could try
| and emulate my 5-year-old's art, but I could then
| demonstrate with a team of forensic analysts that you've
| failed to exactly emulate some of the nuances that my
| 5-year-old displays in his art. Will you then appreciate
| the kind of work my 5-year-old produces when you realize
| how difficult it is to perfectly emulate him?
| chki wrote:
| It's not about copying or perfect emulation. It will -
| probably - be very difficult for you to paint something
| that looks like it was made by Picasso _to yourself_.
| There is no need to involve any experts in this, you can
| be the judge of your own painting.
| vdkjckfnfmkcjrk wrote:
| Well, these photos evoke "some" reactions in people. Do your
| portraits evoke any reactions? The purpose of art is to
| express thoughts, in some dimension. And then viewer can make
| their own interpretations
| deanCommie wrote:
| Here's a more accessible analogy: Here is Jacques Pepin
| making an omelet in 2 ways:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s10etP1p2bU
|
| You can see every motion, every measure, the size of the
| flame, there are no cuts.
|
| But if you actually go ahead and try to make this it turns
| out to be INCREDIBLY difficult to get it right.
|
| Not every random mish mash or scribble is as random as a
| layperson will at first think.
|
| The other analogy is look at the original post. Picasso COULD
| have painted like he did at 15 or 18 or 20 - which I assume
| you would agree you couldn't scribble yourself. But he CHOSE
| to paint in the style you are criticizing. You should default
| to assuming that there is more skill to it than you can see.
| airforce1 wrote:
| So are you arguing that it's impossible for skilled artists
| to make bad art? You're saying a master chef never makes
| meals that objectively taste bad, even if they are
| experimenting with completely new flavors and techniques? I
| think some people in this thread have raised Picasso to
| Godhood status. In my reckoning, Picasso was a skilled
| artist in an ocean of other skilled artists so he was
| desperate to do something different to try and stand out
| from the crowd. So he started experimenting with new
| "flavors and techniques". Assuming he is human, we can
| safely assume some of his experimental creations fell flat
| and objectively turned out bad. To deny this is to uphold
| Picasso as a God who is incapable of producing anything but
| perfection.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > So are you arguing that it's impossible for skilled
| artists to make bad art?
|
| not in the case of Picasso.
|
| > a master chef never makes meals that objectively taste
| bad, even if they are experimenting with completely new
| flavors and techniques?
|
| not when they are preparing it for clients.
|
| The point is that very skilled people are consistent
|
| Their output is always gonna be beyond average.
|
| > some of his experimental creations fell flat and
| objectively turned out bad
|
| perhaps.
|
| but there's no proof of it.
|
| in fact there's proof that he's always been at Picasso's
| level.
| dang wrote:
| Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? It's
| not what this site is for.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| Hard to say until we've seen the results of your scribbling!
| A There are a lot of people who say "I could do that!" but
| curiously few who actually do it.
| baisq wrote:
| You are not Picasso.
| roywiggins wrote:
| You have Picasso as a reference. Picasso was working off-
| book.
| onesafari wrote:
| I find it powerful too and it raises the question of whether it
| reflects an artist in decay or an artist at his peak.
|
| How would we know the difference?
| dkural wrote:
| I don't see a conflict in an artist being the near the end of
| his biological life, and also a peak in descriptive artistic
| powers.
| selfhifive wrote:
| It's always interesting how artists go from generic to eccentric.
| There's no one as divisive as Picasso. Are there any artists who
| just took the fundamentals and did everything textbook to become
| successful? Any near unanimously good ones?
| [deleted]
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| There are many artists that specialize in styles like
| photorealism and make a living... but novelty is what gets you
| to the top
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Hard to say without knowing what was fundamental and textbook
| throughout the years. I imagine nearly all successful pre-
| renaissance western artists and most successful pre-photography
| artists were more or less by the book, but even then, they
| probably changed things incrementally.
|
| Without outside restrictions, any creative pursuit almost
| _requires_ deviating from the norm though, even coding. Think
| of it like this, are you still using only the techniques you
| learned in college and nothing more? Do you not talk shop with
| your coworkers and try to think of new ways to do things?
| superjan wrote:
| It sounds like you want an artist who paints in the style of
| Rembrandt today? Why would a genius deny themselves the license
| to be original?
| trgn wrote:
| Because Rembrandt is awesome.
|
| > Why would a genius deny themselves the license to be
| original?
|
| Because originality as a virtue is a fairly recent concept
| (post-WW1, after disintegration of the bourgeois order). Some
| artists reject that premise.
|
| Can't wait for a future with more Rembrandts, it's something
| I'd totally buy.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Are you talking painting/sketching specifically? I'd suggest
| Ansel Adams as somewhat consistent. What about Andy Warhol? I
| don't recall any of his work that went drastically different,
| but admittedly not an art student
| mynameishere wrote:
| Frederick Hart, Thomas Kinkade, Norman Rockwell. None too well
| respected, I suppose.
|
| The problem is that there are thousands (or more) young people
| with all the technical ability of Michelangelo, and so they
| absolutely need something _else_ to distinguish them. Thus many
| artists go through their "Michelangelo phase" to get to their
| "weird scribbly splotchy phase" which is the real lottery
| ticket.
|
| Perhaps more importantly, the critics needs something to say
| about art, or they won't say anything. See "The Painted Word"
| by Tom Wolfe
| trgn wrote:
| It kind of baffles me that the critiques of modernism were
| already so comprehensive in the 70s, e.g. Wolfe wrt art and
| architecture, and then,... nothing really materially changed.
| s5300 wrote:
| Reminds me of a semi-famous artist local to me. Aethelred
| Eldridge...
|
| He was certainly Michelangelo talented... & eventually ended
| up... hmm... as schizophrenic robotripping-esque?
|
| Not sure that's the most respectful way to describe his art,
| but it's definition accurate.
| tintor wrote:
| Jago: https://www.instagram.com/jago.artist/?hl=en
| manholio wrote:
| Reminds me of Loise Wains' series of cat paintings, which some
| say is illustrating his descent into schizophrenia:
|
| https://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_psychedelic_madness_...
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| This quote is quite a nice way to think about art
|
| "The different styles I have been using in my art must not be
| seen as an evolution, or as steps towards an unknown ideal of
| painting... "
|
| it can be crushing to feel the need to constantly improve and
| move towards an ideal (whose ideal?), abandoning that concept
| seems so freeing
| bobthechef wrote:
| umvi wrote:
| You know the movie "Yesterday" where everyone except a small
| handful of people forget The Beatles ever existed?
|
| Well, I sometimes wonder... if everyone in the whole world forgot
| about artists like Picasso, could the masses still be convinced
| his art is good in modern times? I for one would be pretty
| unimpressed with most of his work ("is this some random grade
| schooler's work you are showing me?").
|
| Meanwhile if the whole world forgot about Michelangelo, my mind
| would still be blown if I saw any number of his works for the
| first time. The first time I saw The David up close I was
| astonished at the level of detail carved into the marble. Like...
| you could see individual veins in the hands and forearms.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _could the masses still be convinced his art is good in modern
| times?_
|
| That's an interesting way to phrase this. There are hype beasts
| out there that camp out and spend tons money on a sneaker
| because it says SUPREME on it. I think people in this
| theoretical world can be convinced that _Guernica_ is a
| masterpiece. I would go a step further and say most people
| wouldn 't even need convincing.
| starwind wrote:
| I think you can say this about a lot of 20th century artists.
| Most of them could paint like the masters if they wanted, but
| point has changed somewhat. Where a famous picture of Napoleon
| was painted to commemorate an like this
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/David_-_...
|
| we use photography for the same thing
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Raising_...
|
| This increases the value of the artistic side of painting
| relative to the technical side.
|
| That said, Jackson Pollock sucks and I'll die on that hill
| hans1729 wrote:
| > "could the masses still be convinced his art is good in
| modern times?"
|
| Is your actual question directed towards the quality of the
| art, or towards the ability of the masses to recognize it?
| Maybe it's because I used to paint a bit, but man, Picasso was
| amazing. If you actually know a random grade schooler who
| "comes up" with this, hook me up!
|
| ART is not about about aesthetical appeal or about realism. Art
| is about art, and what makes an artist just that is the ability
| to translate his perception into _something_. Look at the way
| the style of the self-portraits changed... you can look into
| his soul.
|
| No one, and I mean no one, is driven towards art because they
| want _the masses_ to be pleased about their artwork (if
| anything, the opposite is the case, but it's not about that).
| Expression needs no public appeal.
|
| Will what Picasso expressed still be accessible to humans
| removed from our contemporary culture? Yes. For the masses? Not
| in the chaotic absence of culture that dominates our time.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| I wouldn't call her a "random" grade schooler, but I did know
| a girl growing up who had mastered a similar style to
| Picasso: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Nechita
|
| Wikipedia seems to be claiming they called her "petite
| Picasso," but I remember her being called "pocket Picasso."
| It was a while ago and possible my memory is bad. She went to
| middle school across the street from my high school and was
| friends with a freshman in my class when I was a senior, so I
| got to meet her and work with her a bit.
|
| I guess it's an open question whether she would have been as
| popular and successful if not for the original Picasso
| already existing. There is always an element of luck in who
| gets discovered. It's not like she was the only uniquely
| talented person I ever met in all the years I dabbled in art.
| But people seem to consistently underestimate what this
| takes. It's not like you just wake up every day with no
| training or practice, inspiration strikes, and 20 minutes
| later you have a cubist masterpiece, and you can repeat that
| every day. This girl was legitimately special.
| trgn wrote:
| > Art is about art
|
| That is a very modernist way of looking at it. I think art
| ceases to become art when it is self-referential. Art is
| truth, and great art can stand alone, divorced from context.
|
| > is driven towards art because they want the masses to be
| pleased about their artwork
|
| Agreed, artists are self-driven.
|
| > Will what Picasso expressed still be accessible to humans
| removed from our contemporary culture? Yes. For the masses?
| Not in the chaotic absence of culture that dominates our
| time.
|
| Artists like Picasso could only become so influential because
| the art buying elites were hellbent on rejecting the existing
| bourgeois order. This included a distaste for conformity,
| which turned into an obsession with originality. I genuinely
| doubt that humans removed from our contemporary culture will
| look in awe at art produced in such an incestuous context,
| rather, more they will pity the conditions in which such art
| thrived. Or just ignore it.
| bglazer wrote:
| One way to appreciate a piece of art is to recognize the
| technical skill that was applied in creating it. The David's
| veins and or Jesus's musculature and Mary's flowing robes in
| the Pieta are virtuosic demonstrations of Michelangelo's skill
| in representing lifelike human scenes.
|
| That said, skill in creating realistic representation is not
| the only measure of art's value. Consider Starry Night by Van
| Gogh. What is it that makes this such a striking and stirring
| vision of the night sky? It is certainly not a photo-realistic
| rendering of the stars and moon. Instead, I think it represents
| a radically different perspective and I find beauty in art that
| allows me to have a different vision of the world. A more
| extreme example of the same idea is Islamic art, which strictly
| forbids representations of life, but still strives to express a
| vision of god/allah. Consider the mosque ceilings in this
| twitter thread:
| https://twitter.com/BaytAlFann/status/1517074277312389121.
| There is absolutely no representation of any recognizable form,
| no people, no animals. Only geometry. Yet, they are undeniably
| beautiful. Why is that?
|
| For Picasso, I would make a similar argument. No, his art
| doesn't immediately strike one through its technical skill.
| This is not the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. However, what it
| provides is a completely different perspective. Faces are
| inverted and laid flat, arms are arranged in strange
| configurations. Try to look at a scene around you, right now,
| and imagine how Picasso would see it. Then, I think you'll see
| how extremely peculiar and valuable his art is.
| CJefferson wrote:
| I never really understood Picasso until I went to the Picasso
| Museum. I personally (as a non art expert) can't see how the
| individual paintings are the greatest when considered in
| isolation, what makes them great is his evolution, and the time
| in which he created them, and how he effected other painters.
|
| Yes, if you just dumped a random pile of his paintings out now,
| I don't think they would be great (or at least, I wouldn't be
| able to understand why they were great myself).
| mch82 wrote:
| You hit the key points.
|
| - the arc of a career - the historical period - influence on
| other artists
|
| > could the masses still be convinced his art is good in
| modern times?
|
| Probably not because those contextual factors would be
| different. The experience would be different.
| blenderdt wrote:
| Vincent van Gogh is such an artist. When he lived not a lot of
| people thought he was good. Only much later people noticed he
| was ahead of his time.
|
| But I also think you sometimes need to learn how to look at
| art.
|
| For example Piet Mondriaan is a like Picasso. They both slowly
| transformed into the abstract. In the end Mondriaan only
| created lines and colors. So it is easy to think that anyone
| could create such a painting. But a trained eye can see that
| there is balance in Mondriaan's work.
|
| But in the end it's all about taste. Personally I don't like
| Van Gogh's work very much.
| snicky wrote:
| It's hard to evaluate art without the context of its origins.
| Michelangelo's works were done in 15th and 16th century, so
| it's quite obvious that similar art, no matter how detailed or
| precise couldn't have been considered revolutionary at the
| beginning of 20th century, but it turned out that Picasso's
| "grade schooler's work" has been.
|
| Another example of this is Andy Warhol's "Marilyn Monroe" that
| was just sold for $195M. Currently, you can write a neural
| network that will create better looking portraits, but it
| wouldn't convey any of the context in which Warhol first
| created his pop-art.
|
| Edit: typo in MM's name.
| joseph wrote:
| I've heard people compare Picasso's art to that of a grade
| schooler so many times and I think it's a lazy opinion, sorry.
| Picasso was a virtuoso, to put it mildly. When I saw Woman in
| White[1], it practically jumped off the wall at me. Never saw
| grade school art that could do that.
|
| 1. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/488711
| PKop wrote:
| It's because modern, abstract art is a psyop to promote
| ugliness over the beautiful and sublime.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| This is such a techbro opinion. You know Picasso mastered
| "typical" art before he engaged in the abstract forms, right?
| That's what makes him special.
| yupper32 wrote:
| IMO thinking Picasso is special is more "tech bro" than not.
| Specially crypto-bros. Every time I see someone defending art
| like this and its value, it reads exactly like people
| defending crypto.
| robonerd wrote:
| > _Picasso mastered "typical" art before he engaged in the
| abstract forms, right? That's what makes him special._
|
| So in a hypothetical future where memory of Picasso's
| 'typical art' mastery has been lost, that which makes Picasso
| special will also be lost?
|
| > _This is such a techbro opinion_
|
| Scoffing at Picasso and (particularly) Pollock seems very
| mainstream in the working classes (and has been for as long
| as that art has existed.) It's not a "tech" thing.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I disagree and I think it's a legitimate question. Are you
| impressed by the artist or the art they produced? How much
| can a piece of art stand on its own without the context of
| the artist and their journey, perspective, evolution?
|
| https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-duchamps-
| urina... is a fun read :)
| umvi wrote:
| And? That would be like if Chris Lattner got bored of making
| compilers and languages so he started making bizarre ML-
| generated creations and everyone started worshiping it
| because "he previously mastered typical programming, so
| anything bizarre or abstract he churns out now is
| automatically special!"
| tiagod wrote:
| Art and Engineering are not the same.
| neonnoodle wrote:
| >Well, I sometimes wonder... if everyone in the whole world
| forgot about artists like Picasso, could the masses still be
| convinced his art is good in modern times? I for one would be
| pretty unimpressed with most of his work
|
| I mean... probably? "The masses" aren't the only judges of art,
| although broad appeal does count for some of it. Go see the
| documentary "The Art of the Steal" about the Barnes Foundation
| and its founder, who purchased a trove of post-Impressionist
| work in the early 20th century. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
| Barnes_Foundation#Notable_hold...) The Philadelphia high
| society art snobs of the time thought all that stuff was
| grotesque. Yet Barnes, a chemist of working-class background
| and sparse art education, assembled a collection that the
| "critics" would eventually recognize as masterpieces.
|
| Art we would call "realist" (a term which begs the question)
| always impresses people. There's nothing wrong with that. But
| it's good that that is not the totality of human expression.
| jakobdabo wrote:
| You possibly miss quite the point of what art is about. Yes,
| technique is a part of it, and Michelangelo's works are great,
| no question, but don't diminish something just because you
| don't see the point.
|
| See, you were "astonished" by Michelangelo's work, you felt
| something about it, the realism and the details of the carving
| aroused something in you, emotions.
|
| People can also feel powerful emotions from other types of
| visual arts - there are more nuanced things, like colors,
| shapes, lines and things that you can't describe but only
| experience, partly subconsciously.
|
| Go see a Rothko painting, for example. You can even naively
| tell me that it's just some colors and anybody could paint it,
| but no, stand there and try to experience what that raw visual
| data makes you feel, without trying to find some logic.
| dhosek wrote:
| Those "simple" artworks are surprisingly difficult to execute.
| For that matter, being able to achieve the naive unrepressed
| expression of a random grade schooler is also difficult to
| achieve. Your comment reads like someone who has probably not
| drawn or painted anything since his last required art class.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| This doesn't do much for me as a criticism of Picasso (I'm not
| sure if that's what you intended or not). But it is an
| interesting question nonetheless.
|
| As in any other form of art, I think there is a continuum in
| painting between art that is great because of its surface
| aesthetic qualities [1] and its display of technical skill, on
| the one hand, and works that are less accessible, and made
| great by their relation to other works and their broader
| historical situation. I certainly think that Picasso is much
| farther towards the second pole than Michelangelo. And there's
| nothing wrong with preferring Michelangelo on that basis.
|
| The problem with this as a criticism of Picasso is that it
| pretends to but ultimately fails to identify any objective
| reason for preferring Michelangelo. I personally prefer Picasso
| because I think his work is _interesting_ in the way it relates
| to other works of art and the ideas it communicates if you go
| looking for them. It 's true that I would get much less of that
| if a Picasso work were torn from its historical context. But
| that's just a thought experiment. How does that relate to the
| value of a Picasso at it exists in the real world? (I hasten to
| add: to say that I prefer Picasso is not any sort of criticism
| of Michelangelo! I'd happily travel half way around the world
| to look at his work all day long as well.)
|
| [1] This is, of course, just a first order approximation. I'm
| willfully ignoring the likely interplay here between so-called
| "aesthetic properties" (what colors look nice near each other,
| etc.)--and the broader cultural context.
| folli wrote:
| What made Picasso partially "click" for me, is seeing some of
| his early work. He was extremely talented in the traditional,
| realistic style (it's unfortunately not too apparent from the
| article), and he got too bored of it and single handedly
| invented the style that is now famous (and often copied, and
| thus doesn't stand out as much anymore for our modern eyes).
| somecommit wrote:
| It went from fantastic painting at age 15 to what (common people
| like me would call by lake of knowledge) absolute garbage at the
| end.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| If Picasso had stayed with the style he had at age 15 he'd be
| forgotten today.
|
| Picasso is renown the world over because he pushed art forward,
| and he kept experimenting and pushing art ever forward in to
| his old age.
|
| His later work may not be pretty, but there are a billion
| painters of pretty pictures, but only one Picasso.
| eternalban wrote:
| The last time he pushed art, someone named Braque was doing
| the significant pushing with him. That collaboration ended in
| 1914. He is a great artist but not a genuine lifelong
| innovator.
| mosselman wrote:
| Hardly. The style reminds me a lot of Van Gogh and you know
| who I mean.
| mch82 wrote:
| Good eye! He was evidently a fan.
|
| https://www.pablopicasso.org/picasso-and-van-gogh.jsp
| mch82 wrote:
| Skilled artists often get bored with photo real art. Why paint
| if a camera phone is within reach. Artists also often resist
| optimizing for commercial success ("selling out").
|
| I understand why you might not like the later paintings (or at
| least prefer not to hang them on your wall).
|
| The later paintings are best understood in the context of
| history. Picasso and his peers were experimenting during the
| industrial revolution when trains and fast motion were new and
| video cameras didn't exist to film them. Cubism was a response
| to some of those social changes at the time.
|
| Art like this is also, partly, about community--having a good
| time with other artists in a "hey, check out a thing I tried"
| sense. Picasso may have intended these as a "Ask:HN" or
| "Show:HN" rather than a post of a gallery ready piece of work.
| analog31 wrote:
| >>> (common people like me would call by lake of knowledge)
|
| That's fine. My take is that it's perfectly OK to have art for
| popular appeal, and perhaps separately, art that takes some
| investigation to fully appreciate. I face this as a musician,
| specifically playing modern jazz. A lot of my friends find
| polite ways of telling me they don't like that kind of music,
| and I reassure them that I'm not in the least bit offended.
|
| Of those Picasso portraits, if I could afford just one, I'd
| take 1971. Turns out I can afford just zero.
| influx wrote:
| What got you into modern jazz, and was it an acquired taste?
| fredrikholm wrote:
| Not OP, but been playing classical music for ... christ, 17
| years.
|
| It often is.
|
| "Modern" usually implies dissonance, syncopation, and
| sometimes downright atonality and free time.
|
| These concepts are _fun_ from a musicians standpoint, as
| they break away from formalities and rules, but do so
| within a complex musical context in ways that are very
| difficult as the instruments are balancing between having
| the cake and eating it against each other, simultaneously.
|
| This is hard to pick up on, which in effect often leads to
| the sub-genre confining itself to musicians-listening-to-
| other-musicians demographics, eg. "are they high?"-jazz.
|
| Similar comparisons can be made for Picasso and art in
| general I suppose(?).
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > Of those Picasso portraits, if I could afford just one
|
| For me it would be the 1906 one.
|
| But, like you, I can afford zero of them.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| exactly: he went from boring art student to full on immortal
| artist with his own style.
|
| edit: not contesting the garbage definition. it might as well
| be it, at least if you feel it is, you have every right to feel
| that way. Doesn't mean that he wasn't one of the best painters
| ever. Art should provoke emotions ( even repulsion is an
| emotion) not just "look how pretty that is". That's the easy
| part.
|
| Anyway, he was following a path, he was getting better, not
| deteriorating.
|
| https://www.keylight.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Toro_pica...
| smugma wrote:
| "Simplifying the bull" is taught at "Apple University"
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/technology/-inside-
| apples...
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| I am terrible at everything about hand drawing. I mean I
| can't even draw a square right.
|
| When I first saw "simplifying the bull" I felt I could draw
| a bull by replicating what Picasso did.
|
| I am still terrible, but in a way he gave me the tools to
| draw something (or an idea of it if you will) without being
| able to actually draw it.
|
| His process is assimilable to research at its best.
| neonnoodle wrote:
| IMO learning to draw is sort of like creating your own
| compression algorithm. There are many different ways to
| distill the huge amount of visual information into that
| which can be expressed through abstraction on a two-
| dimensional plane. The coolest part to me is that while
| some of these algorithms are lossy, others are...gainy?
| (what's the opposite of lossy...?) Depending on how you
| tune your simplification of the subject, the result can
| look MORE like the essence of the thing than the thing
| itself. The magic of caricature.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| completely agree!
|
| My girlfriend she's a painter and studied fine arts in a
| London art school.
|
| First thing she told me is that everything is
| asymmetrical, if you're measuring distances, you're doing
| it completely wrong.
|
| Second thin she told me is that details are completely
| useless - if not confusing - if you don't get the basic
| shapes right.
|
| As you correctly point out it's like a compression
| algorithm, and like compression algorithms (as a computer
| scientist) I think implementing what's already working is
| easier than come up with your own new algorithm.
|
| But, despite all the help I got, I'm - unfortunately for
| me - still a terrible draftsman.
| [deleted]
| LegitShady wrote:
| I'd rather learn to draw gesture (which is what is
| described even if they didn't know the name for it) and
| simplifying from Glenn Vilppu or Steve Huston, personally,
| and you don't need mystique about the class like this
| article tries to evoke. You can find both at New Masters
| Academy (NMA.art) for a super reasonable monthly cost -
| sort of like an art lessons netflix.
|
| If your goal is to draw like picasso you need to be where
| he is at 15 before you understand what you're simplifying.
| Even after you take apple's class you'll have concepts but
| you won't have thousands of hours of practice that actually
| using any of those lessons requires.
| TheRealNGenius wrote:
| images don't load on safari
| PKop wrote:
| The one at 15 was the best
| VladimirGolovin wrote:
| "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to
| paint like a child." -- Pablo Picasso.
| praveen9920 wrote:
| First thing I noticed is how his hair style changed over period
| of time.
| bluenose69 wrote:
| Did one of his eyes bother him? From the earliest images on this
| (fantastic) website, one of the eyes is always a bit black-
| ringed, or asymmetrically placed, or covered over.
| nojito wrote:
| Faces aren't symmetrical so its likely he exaggerated the
| asymmetry in his art.
| yung234 wrote:
| Picasso - aren'tcha sick of him??
| [deleted]
| yupper32 wrote:
| How much of art popularity is people wanting to feel in the know,
| and desperately trying to find reasons to enjoy it?
|
| If you say Picasso was a genius, then you're automatically
| accepted into a "smart" or "high class" or whatever group of
| people. If you criticize, then you're ostracized.
|
| It's exhausting to criticize, because the arguments for are so
| lacking in any substance. You get arguments like "art is about
| art", "its subjective", and "there are lots of people who paint
| pretty pictures, but only one Picasso". All actual arguments from
| this thread, all completely lacking in substance. Another good
| one: "if you're talking about it then it must be good". Barf.
|
| I truly do not believe even 50% of people who claim to like
| Picasso actually like Picasso's paintings. I'm very confident the
| majority are people who say they do to fit into a group.
| dkural wrote:
| A lot of any kind of popularity might work in this way, not
| just Art! Did people truly think that 70s hair looked
| incredible? You might enjoy the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who
| writes about these issues in depth. There is a reason mass
| media works.
|
| On the other hand, there is a social context to style and taste
| - we grow up in a certain aesthetic environment, and may feel
| true attachment to that, although a large part of it because we
| grew up with it! So the two factors of authentic enjoyment and
| social influence don't necessarily need to be in conflict.
|
| Finally, a lot of things are popular for the straightforward
| reason that large groups of people actually like them. It
| doesn't even mean they're good. I can't stand most of the best-
| seller novels personally, but enough people buy and read them.
| A "Live Laugh Love" piece is probably more popular household
| item than a given print from Picasso..
|
| Edit: You might also be interested in checking out Rene Girard,
| with his theory of desire and mimicry. Why people might imitate
| high-brow tastes etc.
| cm2187 wrote:
| There are many crypto currencies but only one bitcoin!
|
| Art is my best analogy to crypto.
| yupper32 wrote:
| Exactly. I'm currently getting downvoted elsewhere for
| comparing crypto-bros to art enthusiasts.
|
| Are some crypto technologies cool and useful? Sure. Are some
| artworks nice to look at and/or thought provoking?
| Absolutely.
|
| But some are just hyped by people who are all-in on it,
| without any actual merit. And convincing someone otherwise is
| like convincing a devout religious person that there's no
| god. No amount of convincing is going to change their mind
| because they're all-in.
| [deleted]
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > How much of art popularity is people wanting to feel in the
| know, and desperately trying to find reasons to enjoy it?
|
| Some for sure.
|
| > If you say Picasso was a genius, then you're automatically
| accepted into a "smart" or "high class" or whatever group of
| people. If you criticize, then you're ostracized.
|
| By who? I have a ton of family and friends who think Picasso
| and "all those other guys" suck, none of them are "ostracized".
| You're more likely to be ostracized if you say "I love Picasso,
| he was a genius.", and your reply to "what is your favourite
| work" is "ummm, the melting clock thing?". Mostly because that
| was Dali.
|
| > It's exhausting to criticize, because the arguments for are
| so lacking in any substance.
|
| I'm not sure how to respond to "I can't criticize Picasso
| because your defence will lack substance."
|
| Why, how, would I even "defend" Picasso?
|
| > I truly do not believe even 50% of people who claim to like
| Picasso actually like Picasso's paintings. I'm very confident
| the majority are people who say they do to fit into a group.
|
| A majority of people will say they don't like Picasso if they
| could even identify his work. I didn't really like Picasso
| until I started seeing his work in person. Even then, he's hit
| or miss for me.
|
| I'll bet nobody jumps on this comment to ostracize me.
| ayngg wrote:
| A huge part that is rarely discussed is the shift based on
| consumer demographics at the turn of the century. Academic/
| salon paintings were extremely grand, time consuming and
| expensive, so they were out of reach for most people that
| weren't wealthy or royalty. The new growing middle class had an
| appetite for art but there was limited supply of things they
| could afford, also seen in the craft movement that was
| happening at the same time where consumers desired for
| something greater than soulless, mass produced factory goods.
| Art dealers filled the gap by adopting salon rejects which
| would in turn popularize the new impressionist styles that were
| counter to pieces you would see at salons. An academic painter
| like Bougereau would complete much fewer pieces over their
| career than someone like Picasso.
|
| Here is a lecture that discusses this shift:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G8UfISpb0I
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| Replace Picasso with Kubernetes. Story of my life.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| You seem to be building a narrative that fits a certain
| conclusion, rather than approaching the subject in an
| inquisitive way.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| Why isn't enough to just say you don't like it? That's fine.
| You don't have to. What is tiring here, to me, is all of the
| completely idle and evidence-free speculation about why other
| people merely "say" that they like it. I promise you: I really
| do like it. And it's not just because I want to be part of a
| club. (And I assure you that there are plenty of
| popular/fashionable artists that I _don 't_ like.)
|
| Maybe you could put forward some specific reasons that you _don
| 't_ like Picasso's work, instead of just accusing others of
| being sheeple for disagreeing with you?
|
| To put my money where my mouth is, a bit, here are some things
| that I think make Picasso great, other than their relationship
| to other works and art history more broadly:
|
| 1. Picasso's best cubist portraits move away from representing
| people just as they look and make an attempt to communicate
| what it might feel like to be a person in all of its inner
| deformity and (for some) turmoil.
|
| 2. He synthesized traditional iconography (especially the Bull)
| onto modern art in a way that illustrates (and creates) the
| continuity between modern culture and more ancient ones.
|
| 3. Particularly in works like Guernica, Picasso's composition
| makes me feel--if only dimply--an appropriate sense of sense of
| (in the case of Guernica) chaos and terror.
| yupper32 wrote:
| > Why isn't enough to just say you don't like it? That's
| fine. You don't have to. What is tiring here, to me, is all
| of the completely idle and evidence-free speculation about
| why other people merely "say" that they like it.
|
| Imagine every once in a while there's the same man screaming
| on a busy street you frequent. Most people around you watch
| and comment on the beauty of the man and his actions.
|
| After a while of ignoring it and moving on with your day, you
| eventually have to stop and say "what the fuck are you all
| talking about?"
|
| Everyone looks at you like you're crazy.
|
| "You know, that man was a child prodigy. He mastered classic
| singing styles and is now showing off his abstract work"
|
| "You don't have to get it. I find it powerful."
|
| "Art is art. It's playful. He's expressing his emotions. Not
| everything has to fit in the lines."
|
| The man continues to scream. You comment, "My 5 year old does
| this every day. Why is this special?" You're desperately
| looking for answers. Maybe there's something you're missing.
|
| "I doubt your 5 year old could scream like this."
|
| "There are millions of 5 year olds. Only one of Him."
|
| The man continues to scream.
| Arainach wrote:
| You've illustrated the point. If you say "I don't like it"
| and move on or "What do you like about it?" then we have a
| mature discussion and everyone is content.
|
| If you get aggressive and say "what the fuck are you all
| talking about" and act like you're superior and noticing
| the emperor has no clothes, then you're being an asshole
| and no one will want to give you any respect.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| > The man continues to scream. You comment, "My 5 year old
| does this every day. Why is this special?" You're
| desperately looking for answers. Maybe there's something
| you're missing.
|
| Okay -- but outside your narrative, people can tell the
| difference. Even when the labels are reversed.
|
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/09567976114009
| 1...
|
| And preliminary work suggests machines can as well.
|
| https://cs230.stanford.edu/projects_fall_2019/reports/26237
| 2...
|
| So, in your analogy, it's because everyone but you is
| paying attention to the words and style of the man
| screaming -- which is quite unlike your child's tantrum.
| And you're blinded to that by your own biases.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Picasso's paintings are, to me, very emotionally expressive.
| That (again, to me) is more important than how "realistic" a
| painting is.
|
| I've seen a bazillion highly realistic paintings that are so
| emotionally flat. The technique in them can be impressive,
| but otherwise they tend to be both unimaginative and
| emotionally hollow.
|
| Even more extreme than Picasso in the "it takes no skill to
| make this" (apprently) but conveying real feeling is Jackson
| Pollock.
|
| Lots of people will look at Picasso and Pollock and say "my 5
| year old kid could do this" -- and there's something to that,
| as children's art tends to be more fresh and expressive than
| art made by trained adults -- but kids don't do either
| (unless they've seen and try to emulate Picasso or Pollock).
| Neither do adults.
|
| It took Picasso and Pollock to come up with art like that.
| Same with Malevich's _Black Square_ and Duchamp 's _Fountain_
| , which are also about as simple as art gets, but things like
| that weren't considered art before, and it took these artists
| to make us look at the world in a different way and stretch
| the boundary of what art could be.
|
| John Cage's work with randomness in music is yet another good
| example. His compositions could sound awful or boring, and I
| personally don't like them -- but why must music be something
| that we like? Can't we appreciate and value music that isn't
| pleasing?
|
| The paintings of Francis Bacon and Goya are similar -- pretty
| "ugly" stuff.. but to me they speak the truth about the
| ugly/horrible side of life that is valuable to look at.
|
| At their best, such artists open our eyes and ears to the
| world around us and let us see it in a fresh way that we
| might not have appreciated before.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > Can't we appreciate and value music that isn't pleasing?
|
| This is an oxymoronic sentence.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Only if you think appreciation and value is synonymous
| with what is pleasant. I don't.
|
| Malevich's _Black Square_ is not pleasing to me, but I
| value and appreciate it for expanding the boundaries of
| art. Same with John Cage 's music. What's so oxymoronic
| about that?
| juanci_to wrote:
| After watching the article I came here to comment exactly: <<I
| never understood Picasso>>
|
| It's not about it being bad or something. It's just that it's
| not for me. And that's fine
| wrycoder wrote:
| How about this:
|
| https://i.pinimg.com/originals/df/85/0c/df850c77a87f99730a94.
| ..
| zepolen wrote:
| Picasso was a pioneer, and this alone means he gets the kudos
| by default. Many pioneers didn't make the best content, but
| they _were_ the first to introduce the world to that type of
| content, and just like Black Sabbath was no where near the best
| metal band, they will forever remain legends.
| [deleted]
| shrimpx wrote:
| To expand on what a sibling comment suggested, the art world
| since the early 1900s has become defined by speculative
| trading, and some of those early artists were ultra-hyped, and
| their art has appreciated by millions-fold in the speculative
| art markets. Picasso is one of those ultra-hyped artists that
| was at the center of the initial FOMO fevers. Picasso is a good
| artist, but you have to wonder how, what, and whether Picasso
| would have painted if the art world didn't gain this feverish
| speculative dimension with Picasso at the center of it.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" the art world since the early 1900s has become defined by
| speculative trading, and some of those early artists were
| ultra-hyped, and their art has appreciated by millions-fold
| in the speculative art markets"_
|
| Not only that, but there's evidence[1][2] that the CIA
| secretly manipulated the public's perception of modern art in
| the cultural war against the Soviet Union.
|
| [1] - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-
| was-cia-...
|
| [2] - https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-
| modern-art-...
| rasengan wrote:
| It's not just what is on the canvas but what it entails in the
| midst of the world. One example is Massacre in Korea for
| instance [1]. Picasso was much more than a guy drawing on a
| canvas.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_in_Korea
| webkike wrote:
| I really disagree. They probably saw one or two famous
| paintings by him that they really like. Here's mine:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Guitarist
| shishy wrote:
| Exactly, truly appreciating art, or an artist requires coming
| across one or more pieces that really resonate with you
| (which is really a function of what's going on in your life,
| state of mind, mood, sensitivity, and general ability to
| engage with art, and in some cases understanding its
| historical context, within the art community and in the
| broader world).
|
| Once that happens though it opens the door to appreciating
| other pieces.
|
| I have experienced that same phenomenon with bands, where
| people say "X" is great and I hear a song and don't "get it"
| until I find some other song by them years later and it all
| sort of "clicks" in a way it originally didn't.
|
| With that said, there are definitely people that try to say
| "I like X" to fit in. I just don't know about the 50% bit in
| the OP, but then again, 90% of statistics are made up.
|
| BTW -- The Old Guitarist is on permanent display at the Art
| Institute of Chicago. It is wonderful in person if you
| haven't been yet.
| ishjoh wrote:
| I'm not sure if I like all of Picasso's work, but I really love
| this: https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2017/04/...
| wrycoder wrote:
| https://www.artsy.net/artwork/pablo-picasso-le-taureau
| hans1729 wrote:
| Since "art is about art" came from me: I see nothing
| unsubstantial in that very expression. Art is expression, art
| is play, but most importantly, art is free. I don't see why
| anybody has to be ostracized for not finding access to it, but
| ironically you're making the case for the opposing claim:
| nobody here judged people for not "getting it", yet you're
| insinuating various things about the group that "claims to get
| it".
|
| Why bother making it about identity and individual attributes?
| I find _that_ exhausting. I 'm blown away by Picassos work,
| because I find true beauty in his way of abstracting. He very
| clearly saw the world from a special point of view, which he
| translated in a way that language is not meant to convey. I
| can't claim to truly see what he saw just by looking at his
| work, but I'm seeing _something_ , and I couldn't care less
| wether you find this to be an unsubstantial claim, because I
| don't have to make everything in life about groups and
| identity, peer confirmation, etc etc.
|
| Some well meant food for thought: not all data has to fit your
| model of the world. Usually when this happens, it's not a data-
| problem. Now you can say "well people who claim they see value
| in abstract art are noise to me", and that's ok, it's your
| model - but I found it to be a far better strategy in life to
| keep my mind open instead of being reactionary when confronted
| with something that doesn't please _me_. Cheers!
| yupper32 wrote:
| > Art is expression, art is play, but most importantly, art
| is free.
|
| Of course, and I'm not offended that Picasso decided to
| create his art the way he wanted to. What I'm talking about
| specifically is art popularity.
|
| I'm also not say that there's no one that legitimately would
| be able to pick Picasso's work out of a lineup and genuinely
| find beauty in his work. You very well might be in that
| category.
|
| My main point is that it seems that some artists such as
| Picasso (and I'll throw in Rothko as well since I saw them
| mentioned here) are artificially popularized by people trying
| to seem high class/intelligent.
| hans1729 wrote:
| > My main point is that it seems that some artists such as
| Picasso (and I'll throw in Rothko as well since I saw them
| mentioned here) are artificially popularized by people
| trying to seem high class/intelligent.
|
| Rest assured: while such dynamics (artificial boosting of
| specific artists) do exist, they are a property of the art
| _market_ , not of the artists or their audience. This isn't
| to say that 100% of people who claim to find beauty in
| $artist actually do so, but there is a reason that an
| artist either shapes the culture and his peers - or he does
| not. Picasso and Rothko got big through organic content
| aggregation - they checked the boxes of their peers, you
| will have a hard time finding someone versed in the craft
| who doesn't appreciate them. Saying that some of the people
| who identify as fans of their work actually just look to
| belong is in no way directly related to the art, it's an
| emergent dynamic in _any_ group, so it's pointless to bring
| up when the actual art is being discussed - it's just
| dismissive of the work and the conversation ends with
| exhausting fingerpointing and games of groups and identity.
|
| The various motivations behind art, specifically Picasso
| and Rothko, are free from this exact burden :-)
| nouveaux wrote:
| This makes me sad. This is not because you dislike Picasso. It
| is because you're making art an issue of classism.
|
| If we just ignore the aesthetic of Picasso's art, you can
| categorize Picasso as a genius purely on his influence of other
| artists that follow him. It's possible to dismiss his influence
| by saying those other artists are fools or deranged. However,
| Picasso's influence is undisputed and absolute. Purely on that
| metric, he is classified as a genius. My hope is that anyone
| who is reading this will ask "Why is Picasso influential?"
| instead of "Why would anyone like this?"
|
| It is possible to dislike Picasso and appreciate his influence
| on art.
| yupper32 wrote:
| > you can categorize Picasso as a genius purely on his
| influence of other artists that follow him.
|
| That's a dangerous game. You can surely think of plenty of
| counter examples here in history and modern times.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| No, I can't. Can you provide some "dangerous" counter
| examples of artists who influenced other artists?
| airforce1 wrote:
| I think GP is pointing out that the ability to command a
| following or convince people to follow in your footsteps
| does not a genius make.
|
| Brenton Harrison Tarrant commands a following and
| influenced a lot of copycats (his most recent disciple
| being the perpetrator of a certain shooting in Buffalo).
| So... can we categorize Tarrant as a genius purely on his
| influence of [others] that follow him?
| Ensorceled wrote:
| As much as I hate to trigger Godwin's law here, but that
| is equivalent to saying Hitler was a problematic artist
| ...
| rhcom2 wrote:
| > I truly do not believe even 50% of people who claim to like
| Picasso actually like Picasso's paintings. I'm very confident
| the majority are people who say they do to fit into a group.
|
| What happened to "assume good faith"? People assume everything
| others do now is for clout, or virtue signaling, or somehow
| disingenuous. It's fine not to like popular things without
| assuming everyone else is lying about liking it.
| czbond wrote:
| The 85yro one looks like he placed an I.P. address at the top
| Yes, I realize it is the date. ;)
| planetsprite wrote:
| If noone knew who Picasso was this could pass as a depiction of
| how dementia affected the work of an artist over time, like this
| one:
|
| https://www.boredpanda.com/alzheimers-disease-self-portrait-...
| pmoriarty wrote:
| This guy's art is way better to me than 90% of what I've seen
| in SFMOMA. And, like Picasso, his later "ugly" work is more
| interesting and more expressive than his earliest work.
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