« Time to throw away the brushes. | Main | Good art doesn’t wear out. »
February 15, 2006
More on Wholesale Art
Looking through yesterday’s exciting sales pitch I found the Chinese version of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon:
Oil on canvas 610mm x 510mm [apparently]
Here’s Picasso’s painting, often cited as the most important painting of the twentieth century, for comparison:
Oil on canvas 2439mm x 2337mm
This is a good example of the I-could-do-that-school of criticism. It is clear from this that a] they couldn’t and b] there’s more to this painting lark than a quick glance at the picture lets on.
In this case Picasso spent months working in sketch books and on canvases, searching for an image. He had an idea in his head and a passion in his heart. He painted and drew over and over again.
He didn’t approach the final version with a fixed idea, he carried on working out his passions on the canvas, changing shapes, changing colours, changing the figures, all the time trying to find a way to express what he felt. It was 1907, nothing like this had ever been painted before.
This was PAINTING, this was not a case of starting at the top and working down until it was finished, a bit like you might paint the living room wall. I suspect this is how the copy was made. Your man in China was copying a photograph of the painting, and not very well at that. He had no chance of imbuing his picture with the power and emotion of Picasso’s original.
Hey Ho.
Posted by john at February 15, 2006 09:31 AM