The Success and Failure of Picasso
Category: Books,Literature & Fiction,History & Criticism
The Success and Failure of Picasso Details
From the Back Cover At the height of his powers, Pablo Picasso was the artist as revolutionary, breaking through the niceties of form in order to mount a direct challenge to the values of his time. At the height of his fame, he was the artist as royalty: incalculably wealthy, universally idolized--and wholly isolated.In this stunning critical assessment, John Berger--one of this century's most insightful cultural historians--trains his penetrating gaze upon this most prodigious and enigmatic painter and on the Spanish landscape and very particular culture that shaped his life and work. Read more About the Author John Berger was born in London in 1926. He is well known for his novels and stories as well as for his works of nonfiction, including several volumes of art criticism. His first novel, A Painter of Our Time, was published in 1958, and since then his books have included Ways of Seeing, the fiction trilogy Into Their Labours, and the novel G., which won the Booker Prize in 1972. In 1962 he left Britain permanently, and lived in a small village in the French Alps. He died in 2017. Read more
Reviews
Berger considers the effects of what it may have meant to have grown up as a child prodigy, what effect the turn-of-the-century Spanish milieu the young Picasso brought with him when he encountered and assimilated to Paris, and Picasso's brief period of connection and collaboration with other avant-garde artists, while Cubism was being developed. But what was most helpful to me was Berger's discussion around how Picasso can be understood as a usually isolated artist who had a style, or even, who had several, without having a topic -- how Picasso might be seen, by and large, as an artist in search of subject matter. This problem rang a lot of bells ... Reading Berger has always helped me (and many others of course!) 'see' things in new 'ways' (I suppose this is what John Berger's famous for). This book was not received well when it was published during the sixties, but perhaps now we are less star-struck and past the hero-worship, ready to evaluate both Picasso's short-falls, together with his contributions. Beautifully written ...
