WI No Picasso?

John Fredrick Parker

Donor
What if Pablo Picasso died sometime before his first Paris expo (which OTL I believe was in 1907)? When he first arrived in the city, he spent a few years in poverty, so I can see that happening easily.
 

John Fredrick Parker

Donor
Here's what I'm picking up on what I remember on Art History, and on Wikipedia -- OTL, Picasso was the most influential painter of the "modern" period (i.e. impressionism and everything that came after it); after him, second place goes to a major influence of his, Paul Cézanne; and after Picasso, Cézanne's most famous "pupil" is Henri Matisse. (Got that? Good.) Now, Wikipedia tells me that pretty much all paintings and sculptures of the 20th Century trace their influence to three men -- Picasso, Matisse, and Marcel Duchamp. And, as I see it, if the world hadn't first seen The Young Ladies of Avingon, it would be wholly unprepared for anything like Nude Descending a Staircase.

So, a world without Picasso is a world where cubism and dadism are seriously curbed (or at least delayed). And when the pioneering Post-Impressionists like Gaugin and Cézanne pass, who stands as the biggest thing in the art world? From what I can tell, the answer is Henri Matisse and his Fauvist "disciples". Of course, this is only for the first decade or so of the century -- where things go from there is anyone's guess...
 

MattII

There's less art around, but it's generally better. Personally I dislike Picasso's, and Dali's art intensely, as well as all the rest of that modernist junk.
 

pipisme

There would not have been the painting Guernica, and therefore no tapestry copy of that painting displayed on a wall of the United Nations building. I am assuming no changes to historical events because of no Picasso.
 

Just Leo

Pretty harsh critics around here. Perhaps he should have painted more Madonnas rather than his myriad Mother and Child paintings.
 

SergeantHeretic

Another Boursoisie AMerican speaks.

I don't get Piccaso.

I mean I get that he was an importan and revolutionary painter, but I only know that because people tell me he was and so I believe them.

But I don't get it.

I mean, I lok at his stuff and half the time I don't know what I am looking at. it confuses me and frustrates me and so I become upset.

So call me stupid, call me uncultured, call me a boursois AMerican hamburger eater.

Whatever, I don't think the world would miss crooked pictures of stuff no one can figure out what it was supposed to be.
 

King Gorilla

The world would be a darker place without one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Regardless of your individual "taste" Picasso was immensely prolific, influential, and long lived.

That being said, its highly unlikely that Dadaism, Surrealism, Cubism, or Modernism will be much delayed as artistic movements. I am not much for the Great man theory of history.
 

JJohnson

Banned
SergeantHeretic said:
I don't get Piccaso.

I mean I get that he was an importan and revolutionary painter, but I only know that because people tell me he was and so I believe them.

But I don't get it.

I mean, I lok at his stuff and half the time I don't know what I am looking at. it confuses me and frustrates me and so I become upset.

So call me stupid, call me uncultured, call me a boursois AMerican hamburger eater.

Whatever, I don't think the world would miss crooked pictures of stuff no one can figure out what it was supposed to be.
Click to expand...

I agree. We'd have different art in the 20th and 21st centuries, but I can't help but think we'd have better art. Not this poorly done stuff my 6-year-old autistic niece can do better than. And I've seen her draw. I can actually understand what she is drawing better than most anything Picasso did. And what's with an artist just splashing paint on a canvas and selling it for a few thousand? I can do that.

Give me something like the Renaissance painters, who went for realism and scenery, where things looked like what they were painting. Dürer, Cezanne, those artists I can understand what they were trying to paint. Picasso, not so much.
 

SergeantHeretic

JJohnson said:
I agree. We'd have different art in the 20th and 21st centuries, but I can't help but think we'd have better art. Not this poorly done stuff my 6-year-old autistic niece can do better than. And I've seen her draw. I can actually understand what she is drawing better than most anything Picasso did. And what's with an artist just splashing paint on a canvas and selling it for a few thousand? I can do that.

Give me something like the Renaissance painters, who went for realism and scenery, where things looked like what they were painting. Dürer, Cezanne, those artists I can understand what they were trying to paint. Picasso, not so much.
Click to expand...
If somebody's gonna draw a picture of a naked lady, then it better darned well LOOK like a naked lady.

And she better be hot, too.
 

Dr. Strangelove

Banned
Picasso painted this when he was 16:

Picasso.jpg


He started doing weird things because, literally, conventional figurative art had nothing to offer to him. He didn't care about it and he thought there was no way conventional art could be anything but stale.

Then, after 10 years painting in a cubist style (1906-1918), he went back to painting like this, just because he could, for most of the 20's:

arlequin_picasso4.jpg


31923-Arlequin-pablo-picasso%5B1%5D.jpg


Picasso was no scammer. He was someone who wanted no open new avenues in art because he thought mankind did not have to be tied to doing the same thing forever.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top