Picasso

Few artists have achieved the remarkable cultural feat of becoming simultaneously one of the most influential painters in modern history and the universal punchline for “my child could do that.” Pablo Picasso spent the twentieth century systematically dismantling traditional artistic conventions, reinventing visual language several times over and producing thousands upon thousands of works, only for generations of bewildered gallery visitors to stand in front of them muttering, “Yes, but why is the nose over there?”

This handsome Taschen volume dives headfirst into the magnificent chaos of Picasso’s life and work, tracing the career of a man who approached art with the relentless energy of someone determined never to repeat himself for more than five minutes at a time. Blue Period melancholy, Rose Period warmth, Cubism, surreal experimentation, ceramics, sculpture, political works, portraits that appear to have survived minor explosions — it is all here in glorious abundance.

Warncke and Walther guide readers through Picasso’s astonishing creative evolution with the polished confidence Taschen became famous for: serious art history presented in a format that also looks extremely good left casually on a coffee table beside an espresso nobody is actually drinking. The reproductions are rich, plentiful and frequently startling, reminding one just how endlessly inventive Picasso really was.

And what a strange figure he remains. Picasso appears throughout modern culture less as a mere artist than as an unstoppable creative weather system. He moved through movements, relationships, cities and styles with unnerving confidence, somehow managing to dominate twentieth-century art while also embodying nearly every cliché of the difficult modern genius. Brilliant, exhausting, charismatic, egotistical, endlessly productive — one suspects that even Picasso himself would eventually have found Picasso rather a lot.

The irony surrounding his work only deepens with time. Paintings once regarded as shocking acts of artistic rebellion are now printed on mugs, tote bags, tea towels and student dormitory posters. Radical modernism has become luxury décor. Entire industries exist to reassure people that yes, the strangely rearranged face hanging in the gallery really is worth several million pounds.

Yet this book also reminds readers why Picasso mattered so profoundly in the first place. Beneath the mythology and market value lies a genuinely transformative artist who altered how people think about perspective, form, representation and artistic freedom itself. Whether one adores his work or stares at it with polite confusion, it is impossible to deny the scale of the impact.

There is also enormous pleasure simply in watching the twentieth century unfold through his art. Wars, politics, relationships, experimentation, fame and modernity itself all leave traces across the pages. Picasso did not merely witness the modern world; he repeatedly tore it apart visually and reassembled it into something new.

A superb volume for lovers of modern art, design, twentieth-century culture and anyone who enjoys observing humanity collectively spend a century arguing about whether genius sometimes looks suspiciously like chaos.

Condition: Good. Sold by Crappy Old Books, where revolutionary art, fragmented faces and culturally significant confusion remain attractively affordable.

Keep browsing: See more Art books Other books by Carsten-Peter Warncke and Ingo F Walther