Picasso Black and White

I've always been more into Matisse than Picasso--maybe it's the opposite with Graham--but this exhibition here in Houston is terribly compelling. One wonders after all this time what it is that makes it almost all so good. It's the confidence of the lineation perhaps? I'm standing here in front of his version of Las Meninas for the hundredth time, maybe in my life, and wondering about it.

I associate Picasso with a certain kind of violence. Asked "Who did that?!" by a Nazi officer confronted with Guernica, Picasso said maybe the best thing anyone has ever said: "You did."

Wow, that's even better than Gandhi's "I think it would be a very good idea," when asked what he thought of western civilization.



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