This, in case you are wondering is Seated Woman in a Red Hat by that jovial rascal, Pablo Picasso. According to The Daily Mail, it was found in some museum in America where it had been stored in a backroom and forgotten because, despite the signature, no-one believed it was by Picasso. Now they do. So now it's worth zillions!
I describe Picasso as a jovial rascal although I am not sure if he ever was that jovial but he certainly was a rascal but as, by and large, he confined his rascality to the mega-rich and mega-stupid I am inclined to join in his joviality. Lest you doubt me - you wouldn't do that, would you? - he 'fessed up himself:
"In art the mass of people no longer seek consolation and exaltation, but those who are refined, rich, unoccupied, who are distillers of quintessences, seek what is new, strange, original, extravagant, scandalous. I myself, since Cubism and before, have satisfied these masters and critics with all the changing oddities which have passed through my head, and the less they understand me, the more they admired me. By amusing myself with all these games, with all these absurdities, puzzles, rebuses, arabesques, I became famous and that very quickly. And fame for a painter means sales, gains, fortune, riches. And today, as you know, I am celebrated, I am rich. But when I am alone with myself, I have not the courage to think of myself as an artist in the great and ancient sense of the term. Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt, were great painters. I am only a public entertainer who has understood his times and exploited them as best he could the imbecility, the vanity, the cupidity of his contemporaries. Mine is a bitter confession, more painful than it may appear, but it has the merit of being sincere."
--Pablo Picasso, Jardin des Arts (March 1964), trans.
If not an artist the man would have made a fortune as a second-hand car dealer!
Thank you for this, DD. It is brave, amusing and strangely uplifting. Isn't it amazing that the people who make a living or raise their social status by bullshitting about art keep quiet about this?
Posted by: Whyaxye | Sunday, 19 August 2012 at 10:12
When, like the doyens of the Arts Council and their like, you find yourself afloat on a sea of money, and privilege, and influence, who would wish or dare to rock the boat?
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 19 August 2012 at 10:29
"I am only a public entertainer who has understood his times and exploited them as best he could the imbecility, the vanity, the cupidity of his contemporaries."
I didn't realise he'd ever admitted it. Yet still it goes on.
Posted by: A K Haart | Sunday, 19 August 2012 at 11:33
The man on the Clapham omnibus was right about Picasso and company, right about Freud and right about Marx. Those judgements stand to his credit.
On the other hand, he probably doesn't enjoy Shakespeare or decent music, so it won't do to romanticise his discernment.
Posted by: dearieme | Sunday, 19 August 2012 at 11:42
Why spoil a good racket, AK?
DM, I find it hard to believe you could romanticise anyone, er, except Mrs. DM, of course!
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 19 August 2012 at 11:54
Naive I may be but you have to wonder why one painting is worth fifty million dollars and the painting beside it, which looks just as good to me, is worth $ 60.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder or something like that.
I recently paid $ 10 for a lovely watercolour with "gold" frame and I love it to bits.
Picasso, basically, was a bad tempered old bastard, even when he was a young bastard.
He certainly knew how to fool the masses and the rich folk though, so bully for him.
And then there's Dali......
He once made a harp strung with barbed wire for Harpo Marx. Harpo was totally bewildered by it.
Me too!
Posted by: Andra | Monday, 20 August 2012 at 00:28
Sometimes I think beauty is in the wallet of the beholder!
Posted by: David Duff | Monday, 20 August 2012 at 08:36
BTW the music critic of the http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/proms/9483699/Proms-2012-John-Cage-Day-Royal-Albert-Hall-review.htmlTelegraph yesterday morning gave the prom featuring John Cage's works a five star rating.
Posted by: Umbongo | Monday, 20 August 2012 at 19:17
Sorry 'Bongers', the link wouldn't open but I assume that was one of Cage's, er, silent compositions!
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 21 August 2012 at 10:05
DD
Try this www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/proms/9483699/Proms-2012-John-Cage-Day-Royal-Albert-Hall-review.html [the "http://" has been lopped off] It works for me!
I don't know if 4' 33" was part of the evening's entertainment. Had it not been, and had I been there, I'd have asked for a refund. It's like a recital of Winterreise without Der Lindenbaum.
Posted by: Umbongo | Tuesday, 21 August 2012 at 13:33
Alas, 'Bongers', this time your link worked and I wish it hadn't! What a load of gushing twaddle. When I reached "And there were cactuses - whole flotillas of them, along with seed pods, leaves, pine cones, strips of bark..." I gave up. Is there no end to human folly?
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 21 August 2012 at 13:49