Picasso

I have no authority in art. But once in a while I try to understand the greatness of some masterpieces.

I have been watching this painting of Pablo Picasso while passing through one corridor in my office. It's titled "Bullfight - Horse air".

I liked it, in a sense that it is simple. You can see a man riding a horse hunting a bull. If one has gift of control over one's hand then one sure can paint this. I didn't exactly understand why Picasso would be a great artist for doing such work.

Every time before when I used to see this picture I used to see the three figures. But yesterday when I looked at it I only saw a handful strokes of brushes and that amazed me. In other words, what I saw was how the artist would have drawn it. It sure is trivial to duplicate something in real life on to paper (it's not trivial to me, but for gifted hands it is). But what is not trivial is, extracting the abstractions out of the real things and expressing them with minimal use of paint. I guess that qualifies the greatness of an artist.