A LIFE OF PICASSO

"Picasso needed lost souls to satisfy his cannibalistic appetite for other people's energy."
—page 199, A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Year, 1917–1932 by John Richardson

I am intrigued by Picasso because he is not me. He is a womanizer, virile, hypermasculine, arrogant bordering on divine, cosmopolitan, over-the-top, "present" in ways that I cannot or do not wish to be, self-absorbed, and genius. It is not that I cannot or could not be these things. I have been some of them at times. I have never been able to sustain any of them for long periods of time or able to hold them together as a whole at any point. But, Picasso has. He did. That intrigues me.

I have not read the first two volumes of A Life of Picasso, although I will after reading volume three. The book is extensively researched and documented. John Richardson is a biographer who knows his art. And, as an art critic, he is prone to state his opinions of Picasso's works, as well as that of other artists. In other words, Richardson "knows his stuff." He definitely evokes the milieu of Picasso and his contemporaries. It is also refreshing that if he does not know something, he lets the reader know, rather than speculating or fabricating.

I am just over halfway through this massive book, but it feels like I just started. The writing is crisp and clean and educated without being overly academic. Its extensive vocabulary and use of French, Spanish, and Italian phrases and terms, without always translating them, are nice touches. As a reader, I have to engage the text and work through it a little bit, instead of just sitting back and being entertained. That also intrigues me.