Boy with Pipe

Boy with Pipe

Rebirth of Reason

Boy with Pipe

Boy with Pipe
Picasso

This is one of my top five favorite paintings.

I will not discuss the light, the spatial relationships of the forms, the composition, mood, ease, color contrast, how well it registers from a great great viewing distance (one of my standards for great art i.e. reducing the image to a tiny thumbnail also works), body language, positioning of the head, the bacchanal head dress, or the pipe.

I am not much into who this person really is or where Picasso was in his life or what other artists were doing at the time—simply I am into the painting. I realize that Objectivists will concern themselves with what is the theme that conveys what is the young man doing…but what I see is a sensual, colorful, quirky person in the present.

But I cannot understate the means (all the stuff listed above and more) affects me as much or more than the subject matter…though it is important to note that though this painting sold at auction for 104 million dollars, Picasso would have dashed it off in matter of hours or days…making quick paintings is like writing a very short story, or a tiny poem, an etude, a maquette (a small study in sculpture)…and they give the artist lots a freedom to explore ideas or moods that they might not spend months on.

Michael

(Added by Newberry on 6/16, 10:54am)

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