[HN Gopher] Picasso's self portrait evolution from age 15 to age 90 ___________________________________________________________________ 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-17 23:00 UTC)