The Importance of Picasso

Pablo Picasso was a wonderful painter.  In terms of the list of painters that I enjoy, he would have to be toward the top.  A lot of it has to do with the fact that Picasso was a master of finding the delicate balance between the abstract and the figurative.  I have always been of the mind that to reproduce that which is in front of you does not make an artist; rather, true art requires the interpretation of the thing that sits before you in a way to add more meaning than that which the artist added.  (I understand that mathematically this is not possible, i.e., 1 + 1 does not equal more than 2.  That is the magic art.  However, that is not the purpose of this particular blog.)

What I like about Pablo Picasso is he makes more by taking away.  I point to Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period.  Essentially, during this period Pablo Picasso only painted in shades of blue and blue-green.  A great example of this is his painting “The Old Guitarist”, shown here to the left.  I love how within the blue color there are many different shades.  In the guitar, there is brown.  In the old man’s hair, there is white.  In the floor, there is green.  But all is shaded with blue. 

Coincidentally, Pablo Picasso was a friend of Ernest Hemingway.  Accordingly, what Picasso did with art during his Blue Period, Hemingway seemingly tried to do in his writing.  Hemingway was not overly verbose; rather, his sentence were short and succinct.  They did not say a lot, at least not literally.  Rather, the meaning is found in the spaces between the words.  I recall a story written by Hemingway called “Hills Like White Elephants”.  You can read a copy of the story here. 

When I write, I try to implement this strategy.  In a simplistic way but perhaps in a profound way I implement this strategy is by eliminating all forms of the verb to be.  This over used and vaguely empty word adds little if nothing to a work.  Eliminating all forms of the verb “to be” is not necessarily easy; however, it requires you to write more creatively and descriptively.

In a weird kind of way, this sense of deprivation has a lot of foundations in religious thoughts.  For example, Buddhist believe that suffering is derived from craving, desire, and attachment.  By eschewing those things that you crave, desire, and long for, you finally free yourself so that you can obtain true enlightenment.  Catholics also seem to go through the same process during lent, i.e., giving something up, such as meat on Fridays, allows the Catholic to concentrate on cleansing oneself.

In this modern time of excess, it is difficult to rid oneself of craving, desire, and longing.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am not suggesting that you should give up everything and become a hermit (although I suspect that enlightenment is more likely to come to those who do).  I am merely suggesting that the creative process and meaning arise out of limitations.  As the saying goes, less is more.

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