My Pal Picasso
Pablo Picasso
“Everyone wants to understand art. Why don’t we try to understand the song of a bird? Why do we love the night, the flowers, everything around us, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting, people think they have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only an insignificant part of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world though we can’t explain them; people who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.” – Picasso
I completely disagree. Not to say plenty of artists don’t work subconsciously/intuitively, and not to say value can’t be gleaned by simply soaking up a piece. But to suggest the attempt to understand (whether art or the universe) is misguided is absurd. Would Guernica be so powerful if you didn’t realize it was about war? In short, suck it, Pabs!
Comment by Brandon on 2010/03/04 at 9:39 pm