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Painting interesting things has an inherent problem.  Those interesting things are already, well, interesting.  A tattooed woman is fascinating by herself and maybe a photo of her would be interesting as a beautiful record.  But I feel a painting needs to be more.  A beach scene may be beautiful by itself but there needs to me more than just a record of a beautiful day going on.

Some subjects make beautiful photographs but merely translating this into a painting does not give the painting reason for being.  While photography, film and painting all share the realm of the visual arts, each has its own reason.    Still photography has a power when it grabs an instant of REAL, a fleeting moment that captures something universal.  A scene of a person underwater is fascinating in a real visual sense in a real photographic sense…but does a painting of this add anything? not really.

Film introduces the dimension of time giving the media a power that is initially daunting, to painting artists, when compared with a still painting.  Film has a built-in power of time and also the strength of it being a medium of light.

The argument surfaces periodically that painting is dead…first maimed by photography and given the death cut by film.  However, this misses the point of paint.

Paint has a power all its own.  When we render something in paint each brushstroke is a personal mark.  If a piece is created from hundreds, even thousands of pigmented marks a very personal statement is being made about a subject.  The challenge as an artist is not to create a personal mark or signature stroke…but rather to create stroke that is good, build on another stroke that is good until a piece is complete.

A paintings is sum or quotient of all the things included, things left out and the manner they were brought to life.   A great painting has an unmatched ability to live on a wall and breath with life every day.  Film moving on a wall constantly would be initially fascinating and then soon annoying.  Still photography can be eternal for walls but it is perhaps more difficult because a photograph is inherently mechanical…it takes a true artist to push through or beyond the  mechanics of good photography to make something grand and personal.

Painting on the other hand is inherently personal.  The challenge is not to compete with photography or film, or to try to somehow piggy back on the other two mediums, but rather to find paints core power and use it to create something good.

Picasso is worth looking at, again and again, though the world seems divided on that thought.   Oh, his brush work is simplistic compared to Rembrandt.  His use of color can’t compare with the mastery of a Cezanne still life, a  Klimt or Matisse. Though precocious early with art skills he can’t compare with Bouguereau for beautiful rendering.  And as for gritty anguish, Scheille or Van Gogh give him a serious run for his money.

Labels are clever but, at least in the arts, they do us a disservice.  All too often we stop really looking once we have labelled, catalogued and shelved an artist.  Picasso is a cubist.  Done, boxed and packed neatly away.

In truth in Picasso’s career pure cubism was a sideline….or maybe a door to walk through to get to somewhere else.
Take one of his oft repeated subjects, the simple seated woman.  Picasso is first and foremost a storyteller.  When artists tell stories we often resort to props, drama of theatrical poses, color as mood and setting the scene, flashy brushstrokes to create energy.

Here, with his seated women, Picasso is speaking of a full world of things from simple pleasure of an afternoon, to visions of love, erotic dreams, great luminous joy and playfulness reminding us that not all art need be dark…and bitter anguish…all with a simple Seated Woman.

The brilliance is that he is telling us the stories of these women by his use of form…not with props or dramatic gestures or dredged symbolism.  He creates the endless new forms of a simple seated woman.  Some are joyous, others so sad, or dreaming rich eroticism, and others simply enjoy a quiet day.  And yet others, painted during the war, are often interpreted to show Picasso as a misogynist, but I think these speak more to the anguish during the bitter days of war in Paris.

These are not merely labelled, neat and tidy cubist experiments.  He is speaking with shapes and forms. Telling stories with the actual creation of new arm, leg and head forms.  Brilliance, well worth looking for.

That and the sheer playful creativity if it all.  Picasso is not to be shelved.  He is one of our great realistic storytellers.