That's a Picasso quote. For me, even his small etchings and line drawings have more soul and substance and solidity (and variety and visual surprise) than all the work of the other great artists I have seen. Every line shows strength, boldness, certainty, inevitability, regardless of whether it is etchings, lithos, oil, ink, watercolor, collage, sculpture - anything. It's called "talent."
If you're in the neighborhood, I'd advise not missing the Picasso show at the Metropolitan Museum. We got there yesterday. 300 works, all dusted off from their own mind-boggling collection. If I didn't suffer from "museum brain," I could have spent an hour just in the last room with the small etchings from the 1960s. As always, the audio guide is very good ($6, and two for one if you are a member.)
The show runs until Aug 15, and it's never crowded in August. I'd say the show is worth a special trip to NYC because it is a visual feast. For me, an overdose because just a handful of wonderful pictures fills my feeble brain to the brim.
This from his "Classical" period, 1920s.
More of my pics below the fold -
Paris studio, Cubist period (which he never entirely gave up), c 1911:
In Barcelona, c 1900:
Blind Man's Dinner (bread and wine) during his early years in Paris (no money, no chicks), c. 1904.
Then he found a hot 17 year-old girlfriend, and began selling some pictures. Thus his "pink period." Harlequin is a self-portrait:
His "high analytic Cubism" phase, c 1910:
More from then. I find just the choice and use of color astonishingly fine:
1920s, the famous Woman in White:
The bathing scene line drawings, same era. Nobody could draw a line like Picasso:
In 1939, he fled Paris to the south of France with new wife, along with previous girlfriend and her kid from him: Sheep Skull and Grapes:
Then we get into unmistakable Picasso:
Late work from the 1950s and 1960s. This is wife Jacqueline:
So is this:
One of his 1960s Musketeer etchings:
You have to see this one in person. Musketeer, girl, and guy with party hat:
