Customer Reviews

Success and Failure of Picasso

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John Berger is a critic with a real sense of decency: never too high-falutin, smart and responsible. He asks us to see beautiful objects, not in their staid isolation in the museum setting, but in the context of social history. It is obvious that Picasso was a genius. He saw and drew things that evoke wonders and passions. But is that all?

The central essay here is "The Moment of Cubism." Berger paints a general portrait of a distinct era of possibility: artistic and social and political. The explosion of Cubism is but a moment in a larger moment of real revolution. Not just "ways of seeing" but ways of living, thinking, hoping. Berger reminds us that Picasso needed the times (Europe), he also, more specifically needed friends and support. After all, there were two who brought forth cubism; moreover, there were the likes of Cezanne.

Berger asks the question that is overlooked in the constant reverence of Picasso's potency (echoing Benjamin Buchloh on the "ciphers of regression"): was Picasso genius throughout his career or was that moment (historical and aesthetic) the real genius?

(For more on Berger, read his two inspired novels: "G." and "To the Wedding.")

John Berger is not your mainstream art critic. He is an independent thinker and is nobody's fool. You may find his Marxist rhetoric somewhat dated and his references to bourgeois class even silly, but his style is strong, he's informed intellectual with whom you may disagree but will respect and, if you opened, will learn few things.

Berger attributes Picasso failure (assuming you know where Picasso had succeeded) to his selection of inferior subject matter. Being of Marxist's creed, Berger would prefer for Picasso to select his subjects from a set of social problems which will connect him to a 'working class', a nation, or a movement, rather than be confined to a personal expressions. He's OK with his blue-pink period of 'being a social outcast' and considers his cubist period as his best. He also finds the merit in his work of post-war years and sees his work in decline starting from fifties. His accusations are not completely groundless but are disputable. His astute criticism of cubism, its connection with natural sciences, quantum mechanics, its simultaneity of multiple views as a way or organizing information, these are the most interesting passages I enjoyed.

I like Berger's dissenting views as a stimuli for discussion. He will not bow to the overwhelming Picasso admiration and is not afraid to provides critique that alone drives our knowledge forward. I found his book interesting and useful.