Customer Reviews

What Makes a Picasso a Picasso?

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A true gem. Not that big, but focuses on his best works. Very good for students doing reasearch and art lovers alike. Beautiful illustration

The goal of this series from The Metropolitan Museum of Art is provide an understanding of what makes an artist unique. Consequently, you will not find a large number of Picasso's paintings in this volume, but you will find over a dozen key works looked at in some detail. For example, "Guernica," which is probably his most famous painting, is presented as not only a two-page spread, but with five enlarged details. Other paintings looked at in detail are "Family of Saltimbanques," "Daniel-Enry Kahnweiler," and "Three Musicians," three paintings done in totally different styles, which, of course, is the essence of Picasso Richard Muhlberger tries to look at key facets of Picasso's long career, from the Blue Period (1902-05) to the playful abstraction of his later years.

Muhlberger focuses on how Picasso invented new ways of picturing things, even as he worked in a number of styles. We learn that Picasso showed objects from many viewpoints at a time, distorted shapes and colors to convey emotion, while also simplifying things into basic shapes. The strength of this series is that it gets down to the essentials for each artist, so that you get the sense their style is as recognizable as their signature. These books are not really intended as introductions to artist like Picasso, Monet and Degas, but as more advanced art appreciation lessons.