Picasso… Schmicasso

So… Picasso…  I’ve now been up close and personal to some of his greatest works at the AGO exhibit.   I can now say
with some knowledge – “His Rose Period is my favourite period.” 

Boy With a Pipe 1905

Picasso’s rose period was 1904-1906 (ish),  in case you too, wanted to pretend you have knowledge of Picasso’s periods.  Okay, that just made me smirk.  I am an infant.  The
painting above is Boy With a Pipe which wasn’t in the exhibit (posters were in the gift shop though) and THIS painting, I
adore. At this exhibit, I also discovered that Picasso was this amazing
sculptor.  WHO KNEW?!?  Well, I’m sure lots of people knew, but I didn’t
until I saw his Jester,

The Jester, 1905 (note that it’s also in the Rose Period)

and there was this INCREDIBLE Woman’s Head.  Not that she was a super-hero called the INCREDIBLE WOMAN or anything, but this sculpture was amazing in person!

Head of a Woman (1909 early cubism)

PLUS, later in his career he did weird-ass shit!  This might possibly have been my favourite! 

Man with Sheep, 1943

Although this one would come a really close second.  The hip bones, the udders… so much to love there!

Goat, 1950

I also saw the below piece, The Acrobat, which made my ovaries hurt.  It made me wiggy.  If it had
any colour I could admire, I might have been able to stand it, but
because there’s no torso and the joints don’t make sense…  I mean look at it – there’s an ass made out of an arm and a leg.  It creeped
me out.  I actually felt nauseated in front of it.  My friend Jon took glee in keeping me in front of it as long as possible.

The Acrobat, 1930

There
were really only a couple of his cubist paintings that I liked.  These were the ones where the women
actually had some expression to them.  These were the ones that weren’t all boobs and
crazy eyes and half-severed women bent in half.  Generally, he painted his lovers/wives – of which he had MANY.  Wait, that sounds a bit harsh.  Let me temper that.  To my knowledge, he wasn’t a bigamist – I mean the guy wasn’t living in Utah or anything.  He just slept with a LOT of women.  There are 8 major relationships, with possibly dozens or hundreds more.  The dude dug the ladies.

While with Eva Gouel (who was succumbing to either cancer or TB), Picasso had an affair with Gaby Lespinasse.  While married to Olga Khoklova he had an affair with Marie-Thérèse
Walter.  He had an affair with famed photographer Dora Maar (see below), while involved with Marie-Thérèse
Walter.

Dora Maar, 1937

While with Dora Maar – he stepped out with Francoise Gilot – who left him, frustrated by his inability to keep it in his pants – you’d figure by this time, his penchant for the female form would have been well-known.  He’d been sleeping with Genevieve Laporte at the same time he was with Gilot.   Laporte  left him shortly after Gilot did.

The painting below was of his second wife, Jacqueline whom he met in 1953 after having been abandoned by the only women (apparently) who were smart enough to move on with their own lives.

Jacqueline with Crossed Hands, 1954

(Perhaps I’m editorializing, but come on ladies!  Really?  You think
he’s ever going to change?  REALLY? I  mean REALLY!?! ) He was with Jacqueline for 20
years and painted her more than any other woman.  The representations of
Jacqueline have personality and depth that other later paintings don’t
seem to have. It became clear that, in general, I ain’t a big fan of his later stuff.  Hence my attachment to the Rose Period.  The other cubist stuff was mostly in uniform shadow-box frames with glass over top of them and they had
no depth – you couldn’t see the brush strokes.

Which is probably why I dug the sculptures, because you could
see the depth and dimension to them.  Very, very cool to discover that
I’m a big fan of Picasso – the sculptor.  PLUS –  I can now speak with
intelligence about The Rose Period.  BOO YEAH!