Add a Little Color to Your Picture Frame

I know...another art nut writing about the great Picasso...what a yawn. But seriously - come on - its PICASSO we are talking about! Pablo Picasso is arguably the most influential, dynamic, and creative artist of the 20th Century. While in Seattle this winter I was fortunate enough to see a major collection of his work at the Seattle Art Museum. While I found some of his cubist pieces a bit repetitive, the sheer number of works, periods, and mediums he mastered is shocking to me. (I think it is cool how after spending a few hours in a museum, thoughts and feelings one rarely considers are roused to the forefront of the mind...almost like a good day at church...)While many like to this of Picasso as a hero like genius, his family had a long tradition in the arts, were well situated, and his father was a fine arts instructor. Picasso, while remarkably talented, was not "Picasso" just because of his God given talent. I think the fact that Picasso was so well trained in art and financially stable does not take away from the work he produced. Rather, I think it suggests that his mastery was more than a bunch of unorganized scribbles that people enjoyed to look at, but was a purposeful intellectual examination of what visual art is and how it can function as an expressive medium.

The ability to express emotion through the visual arts is an amazing gift. No one did this better than Picasso. Throughout all of his work, one consistent reality continues to present itself - Picasso understood the human condition, the complexities of the person, the realities of living in modernity. Whether expressing the squalor of war, the levity of the human figure, or the condition of cultural misfits (his series on circus performers is TO DIE FOR! I know...I am the clown guy...) Picasso took everyday realities and made them novelties. Throughout all of his work, I think Picasso's love for his craft and the process of transformation shines brightly though. The color, line, asymmetry, flatness, and simplicity of shape in Picasso's cubist works are truly remarkable.

Picasso's ability to communicate his reality in a way that expresses its essence is unmatched; I look at this work and feel it in so many different ways. Making us reflect on the visual world we inhabit seems as big a gift to the Western world as Picasso's art at large. If only we could all look at our worlds with the passion, creativity, and elegance as did Picasso....what a world we can exist in if we only adjust our eyes to the correct setting!