<story><title>Picasso&apos;s self portrait evolution from age 15 to age 90</title><url>https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/picasso-self-portraits-photos/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>umvi</author><text>You know the movie &amp;quot;Yesterday&amp;quot; where everyone except a small handful of people forget The Beatles ever existed?&lt;p&gt;Well, I sometimes wonder... if everyone in the whole world forgot about artists like Picasso, could the masses still be convinced his art is good in modern times? I for one would be pretty unimpressed with most of his work (&amp;quot;is this some random grade schooler&amp;#x27;s work you are showing me?&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile if the whole world forgot about Michelangelo, my mind would still be blown if I saw any number of his works for the first time. The first time I saw The David up close I was astonished at the level of detail carved into the marble. Like... you could see individual veins in the hands and forearms.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>karaterobot</author><text>People are ragging on you for this question, but it is an important, and not an uncommon one at all. Thanks for being brave enough to ask it publicly.&lt;p&gt;I have wondered this myself. People &lt;i&gt;think&lt;/i&gt; they recognize great art because of its inherent qualities, ignoring the hard to dispute fact that culture, fashion, and economics influences a lot of what we consider great in art. Tastes change over time, and the pantheon is always in flux, even though the art itself is still the same. So, of course people can look at something and &amp;quot;fail&amp;quot; to recognize its genius!&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s not to say that some things aren&amp;#x27;t better than other things, or that everything is relative. Only that the relationship between aesthetics and culture is complicated and woven together in a way we struggle to untangle in ourselves, let alone more broadly.&lt;p&gt;In the particular case of Picasso, I &lt;i&gt;think&lt;/i&gt; I can look at paintings like Guernica and Man with a Guitar and say &amp;quot;well, shit, there&amp;#x27;s something going on here that deserves my attention&amp;quot;. But there are other widely-hailed artists I don&amp;#x27;t respond to in this way. I think they&amp;#x27;re garbage, and people are crazy for paying millions of dollars for their work. Maybe I&amp;#x27;m deluding myself.&lt;p&gt;The only thing I&amp;#x27;d challenge you on is your confidence that you&amp;#x27;d always recognize certain Michelangelo works as genius (with the implication that they are universally and timelessly good, not just that &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; would happen to personally like them). All I can say is that I&amp;#x27;m not sure I am confident that I would pass that test.&lt;p&gt;I guess there&amp;#x27;s no accounting for taste.</text></comment>
<story><title>Picasso&apos;s self portrait evolution from age 15 to age 90</title><url>https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/picasso-self-portraits-photos/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>umvi</author><text>You know the movie &amp;quot;Yesterday&amp;quot; where everyone except a small handful of people forget The Beatles ever existed?&lt;p&gt;Well, I sometimes wonder... if everyone in the whole world forgot about artists like Picasso, could the masses still be convinced his art is good in modern times? I for one would be pretty unimpressed with most of his work (&amp;quot;is this some random grade schooler&amp;#x27;s work you are showing me?&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile if the whole world forgot about Michelangelo, my mind would still be blown if I saw any number of his works for the first time. The first time I saw The David up close I was astonished at the level of detail carved into the marble. Like... you could see individual veins in the hands and forearms.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bglazer</author><text>One way to appreciate a piece of art is to recognize the technical skill that was applied in creating it. The David&amp;#x27;s veins and or Jesus&amp;#x27;s musculature and Mary&amp;#x27;s flowing robes in the Pieta are virtuosic demonstrations of  Michelangelo&amp;#x27;s skill in representing lifelike human scenes.&lt;p&gt;That said, skill in creating realistic representation is not the only measure of art&amp;#x27;s value. Consider Starry Night by Van Gogh. What is it that makes this such a striking and stirring vision of the night sky? It is certainly not a photo-realistic rendering of the stars and moon. Instead, I think it represents a radically different perspective and I find beauty in art that allows me to have a different vision of the world. A more extreme example of the same idea is Islamic art, which strictly forbids representations of life, but still strives to express a vision of god&amp;#x2F;allah. Consider the mosque ceilings in this twitter thread: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;BaytAlFann&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1517074277312389121&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;BaytAlFann&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1517074277312389121&lt;/a&gt;. There is absolutely no representation of any recognizable form, no people, no animals. Only geometry. Yet, they are undeniably beautiful. Why is that?&lt;p&gt;For Picasso, I would make a similar argument. No, his art doesn&amp;#x27;t immediately strike one through its technical skill. This is not the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. However, what it provides is a completely different perspective. Faces are inverted and laid flat, arms are arranged in strange configurations. Try to look at a scene around you, right now, and imagine how Picasso would see it. Then, I think you&amp;#x27;ll see how extremely peculiar and valuable his art is.</text></comment>