Why the Best Film about Pablo Picasso Is a Graphic Novel

Artists aren’t easy people to be around sometimes. Genius and jerk often walk hand in hand. They may suffer for their art, but those who support them often become collateral damage in the quest for immortality. Making a biopic of any artist and balancing the good with the bad seems an almost impossible task. Making a biopic of Pablo Picasso, a classic case study of the genius-as-jerk, that praises the painting while honestly assessing the collateral damage to women has never satisfactorily been filmed.  But where cinema fails, maybe the cinematic graphic novel can succeed.  The graphic novel Pablo, written by Julie Birmant and illustrated by Clément Oubrerie, is the best “film” ever made about one of the founding fathers of modern art — a portrait of intertwined genius and jerk that never loses sight of either side. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Why the Best Film about Pablo Picasso Is a Graphic Novel."

Are Liberals Killing Art?

In his recent New Republic article titled “Liberals Are Killing Art: How the Left became obsessed with ideology over beauty,” art critic Jed Perl makes a convoluted argument that liberalism now “find[s] the emotions unleashed by the arts—I mean all of the arts, from poetry to painting to dance—something of an embarrassment.” Embarrassed by emotions, liberals “who support a rational public policy—a social safety net, consistency and efficiency in foreign affairs, steps to reverse global warming—[are] reluctant to embrace art’s celebration of unfettered metaphor and mystery and magic.” Beginning with that quick hop, skip, and rhetorical leap from global warming to art appreciation, Perl stands up a series of liberal straw men to knock down in his overall accusation that liberals see art just as political (or politicizable) content at the expense of aesthetic pleasure. In resurrecting an old school argument from more than half a century ago, Perl asks if liberals are killing art, but ends up making readers ask if conservative critics are killing art instead. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Are Liberals Killing Art?"

How Mickalene Thomas Breaks Up the Modernist Boys Club

When Pablo Picasso and other early modernists appropriated elements of so-called “primitive” African art for Cubist and proto-Cubist works such as 1907’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon they perpetrated a kind of artistic colonialism similar to the economic colonialism that brought back African treasures to French museums and galleries in the first place. It was an exclusively European, almost exclusively male club that marginalized not just the African culture it emulated, but also the women that were often the subjects of their art. In Mickalene Thomas: Tête de Femme, African-American artist Mickalene Thomas breaks up the modernist boys club a century after its formation and takes aim at the lingering effects of its subtle misogyny and racism that continue in the visuals of our present-day culture. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Mickalene Thomas Breaks Up the Modernist Boys Club."

How Cézanne Saw a World in an Apple

Just as poet William Blake asks us “To see a world in a grain of sand” in his poem “Auguries of Innocence,” painter Paul Cézanne asks us to see the world in an apple in the many still lifes that span his long career. In The World Is an Apple: The Still Lifes of Paul Cézanne currently at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, PA, we’re invited to enter into the world of “the painter of apples” and come away with new eyes that see what Cézanne called the “ambient penetration” of all things, that living quality of even inanimate objects best captured in the still life, or as the French would say, “Nature morte,” literally and paradoxically “dead life.” Using one of the oldest of genres, Cézanne set the rules for the modern art that followed him while forging a naïve, simplistic persona the real philosopher in paint hid behind. After viewing The World Is an Apple, you’ll come away with a new appreciation not only of Cézanne the painter, but also of Cézanne the visionary who saw the whole world in even the simplest apple and wants you to, too. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Cézanne Saw a World in an Apple."

How Picasso Mythologized Love and War

After a trip to Italy in February 1917, Pablo Ruiz y Picasso decided to go back to basics in his art. Like so many other artists and pretty much the entire world, Picasso wanted to leave behind the Cubist style matching the modernist discord of World War I for a neoclassicm that emulated the harmonious artistry of the Ancient Romans and Greeks. Despite this turn towards the past, Picasso’s private and public present continually intruded, resulting in a mythologizing of his loves and wars. In the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s new exhibition Picasso Prints: Myths, Minotaurs, and Muses, we see Picasso refashion ancient myths into personal alter egos from the 1920s through the 1950s as a way of dealing with events in his convoluted love life as well as the convoluted politics of his native Spain, specifically in the masterpiece of Guernica. In choosing the Minotaur—a figure simultaneously of great violence and great sexual energy—as his avatar, Picasso reinvented the game of classical symbolism and forged a modern mode for mythology. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Picasso Mythologized Love and War."

Italian Futurism: The Undead Art Movement?

When people say that an art movement or school “died out,” they usually don’t mean it literally. In the case of the Italian Futurists, however, you can specify the day the movement “died”—August 17, 1916, the day that artist Umberto Boccioni succumbed to injuries at the age of 33 after falling from a horse and getting trampled during Italian Army cavalry training for World War I. Boccioni exemplified the best parts of an art movement that celebrated modern technology aesthetically. His death registers today as another senseless death among millions during the “Great War.” In a different sense, however, Italian Futurism “lived on” for another three decades and one more world war in the person of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the movement’s chief manifesto maker and warmonger. The Guggenheim Museum’s new exhibition Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe, which runs through September 1, 2014, resurrects the good, the bad, and the ugly truths of an art movement that died in the culture and wars of the past yet still lives on, zombie-like, in our modern ones. How did Italian Futurism become the undead art movement? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Italian Futurism: The Undead Art Movement?"

Was Louis Armstrong the First Great American Modernist?

“Master of Modernism and Creator of His Own Song Style” read the posters for Jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong when he appeared in Memphis, Tennessee in late 1931 at the end of a decade of development that saw him take the raw talent spawned in his hometown of New Orleans and spread it across all of America, bringing not just jazz, but modernism itself to both black and white audiences. In Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism, musicologist and Duke University professor Thomas Brothers traces the trajectory of Armstrong’s rise against the backdrop of the racial and cultural divisions of early 20^th century America. Brothers takes readers deep inside the art of Armstrong and dismisses both the myth of Louis’ naïve, unlearned talent and the criticism of Louis’ sellout to white tastes with the ease of the master hitting a high note. In Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism, Louis Armstrong emerges not just as the founding father of jazz (and all American popular music that follows in its wake), but as the first true modernist of American art. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Was Louis Armstrong the First Great American Modernist?"

Does Cultural Big Data Amplify the Anxiety of Influence?

The only thing possibly worse than facing a creative blank is facing a creative overload—to find yourself drowning in a sea of influences with no guiding life preserver in sight. In a recent article in Wired, Paul Ford wrote about how “Netflix and Google Books Are Blurring the Line Between Past and Present” and creating what he calls “a history glut.” Although Ford focuses primarily on the “history glut” and delves momentarily into the “music history glut,” similar gluts can be seen in all the arts, especially the visual arts. Literary critic Harold Bloom coined the phrase “the anxiety of influence” in 1973 with no clue how that anxiety would blossom exponentially four decades later. Can artists today cope with that growing, digitally available anxiety to create their own art? Does cultural big data amplify the anxiety of influence? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Does Cultural Big Data Amplify the Anxiety of Influence?"

Are Our Minds Wired to Enjoy Cubism?

When Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque first brought Cubism onto the modern art scene in the first decade of the 20^th century, the initialreviews were mixed. Like-minded artists and art lovers embraced Cubism as a startling new way of seeing breaking violently with the representational art of the past. Many others, however, saw only madness and perhaps a little fraud in these images taking everyday objects and representing them from every angle simultaneously. Preferences for modernism or classicism certainly played a big role in responses. But what if we could wipe away those preferences? Would an unprejudiced viewer accept and maybe even enjoy Cubist paintings? A team of researchers recently tackled that question by testing whether art novices shown a series of Cubist works expressed a liking for the works and if detectablility—whether or not the viewer could visually reverse engineer the image back to its everyday source—played a role. Their results not only suggest that Cubism can be enjoyed by the novice, but that more difficult (but not too difficult) works to untangle tickle the pleasure zones of the mind. Are our minds wired to enjoy Cubism? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Are Our Minds Wired to Enjoy Cubism?"

1. Home
2. Blogs
3. Picture This

Munch at 150: More to Scream About?

by Bob Duggan

November 8, 2013, 9:18 AM

If you know only one work of modern art, it’s probably The Scream. More people know that “Mona Lisa” of modern angst than know the name of the artist that painted it over a century ago—Edvard Munch. From 1893 through 1910, Munch painted multiple versions of The Scream in several media, the equivalent of releasing your greatest hit on several albums. No one-hit wonder, however, Munch built a long and screamingly successful career that elevated him to the status of national hero in his native Norway. To mark the sesquicentennial of Munch’s birth this December, Oslo’s Munch Museum launched a massive Munch 150 exhibit, which is accompanied by a brilliantly fresh look in the companion catalog, Edvard Munch: 1863-1944. As much as we’d like to think we know the “real” Munch, much of that Munch belongs to the mythology that arose around the mysterious artist, and much of that Munch mystery marketing came from the man himself. From this reevaluation, Munch arises from the mists of his and others making and appears more creative and more compelling than ever. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Munch at 150: More to Scream About?"

Is David Bowie the Picasso of Our Time?

 When David Bowie played Andy Warhol in the 1996 film Basquiat, he wore Warhol’s actual wig and glasses. Bowie met Warhol in his travels through the art world and even played the song he wrote about him to Warhol, which Andy, of course, didn’t like. In an interview leading up to the exhibition David Bowie is (at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario, Canada, through November 27, 2013), artist Jeremy Deller compares Warhol’s influence on the 1960s to Bowie influence on the 1970s. “They both ruled the decade,” Deller claims. “They defined it and they changed it.” However, the artist that Bowie mirrors the most may be another of his favorites, Pablo Picasso. Like Picasso, the single constant in Bowie’s career has been being on the cutting edge of change. Over the years, Bowie’s been Ziggy Stardust, Tao Jones, Halloween Jack, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke, and John Merrick, the “Elephant Man.” But Bowie’s always been Bowie through all those incarnations. David Bowie is shows you how he’s been all those things and more, but also what he “is” today—an influential force beyond any single art form, the Picasso of our time. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is David Bowie the Picasso of Our Time?"

How Picasso Found Truth in a Closed Room

One of the first words nixed by postgraduate education is “truth.” Amidst all the deconstructing and linguistic acrobatics, “truth” is just too troublesome and old fashioned. So, imagine my surprise to see the title of art historian T.J. Clark’s newest book, Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica. Originally delivered in 2009 as a series of six lectures at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, Picasso and Truth shows how Clark rediscovered Pablo Picasso’s struggles with the concept of “truth” in his painting over the course of first half of the 20^th century, starting with 1901’s The Blue Room (shown above) and ending with 1937’s Guernica. Using meticulous close reading of numerous paintings in between those two poles and philosophical assists from Friedrich Nietzsche and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Clark weaves his way through Picasso’s process, nimbly leaps over the landmines of strict biographical interpretation, and arrives finally at a complex, challenging, but coherent concept of how Picasso found truth in a closed room and spent the rest of his life trying to find it again. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Picasso Found Truth in a Closed Room."

[Many thanks to Princeton University Press for providing me with a review copy of Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica by T.J. Clark.]

An Animated Parable of Painting

What really matters in an art education? Do we teach every child to paint or sculpt? Do we school them in names and dates and places? Or do we somehow teach them the elusive and dangerous “truth” of what art is or should be? Jean-Francois Laguionie’s animated film The Painting (Le Tableau), distributed across the United States this month by GKIDS, Inc., uses the ages-old technique of allegory combined with the modern wonder of animation to tell the truth of what making and appreciating art really is. Dazzlingly designed, rapturously rendered, and devastatingly direct, The Painting pictures for an impressionable audience how art makes us more ideally human by making the medium itself move. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "An Animated Parable of Painting."

[Many thanks to GKIDS, Inc. for providing me with the image above from, a screener’s copy of, and other press materials related to The Painting (Le Tableau), which opened in New York City on May 10^th and will expand to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, and other cities beginning May 24^th.]

When Modernism First Moved

Modernism first moved on May 29, 1913. That’s century-old hyperbole, of course, but if any date achieves day of infamy status for modern art in the 20^th century, it’s the day that Russian composer Igor Stravinsky teamed up with Russian ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes company to stage Le Sacre du printemps, or, in English, The Rite of Spring. Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929: When Art Danced with Music, now at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, returns to that cataclysmic moment when modernism became an unavoidable reality for the mainstream public, which had done its level best to ignore it previously. Multimedia in its combination of music, dance, and artistic design, The Rite of Spring and other productions by the Ballet Russes helped modernism move beyond the fringe to the center of Western culture ever since. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "When Modernism First Moved." 

[Many thanks to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, for the image above and other press materials related to Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929: When Art Danced with Music, which runs through September 2, 2013.]