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Read The Success And Failure Of Picasso (1993)

The Success and Failure of Picasso (1993)

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3.94 of 5 Votes: 4
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ISBN
0679737251 (ISBN13: 9780679737254)
Language
English
Publisher
vintage

The Success And Failure Of Picasso (1993) - Plot & Excerpts

One of the most enjoyable reading experiences I've had in a while. Berger's erudition and analytic acumen are sharp and wide-ranging, but the book is presented more as the notes of a learned man than a rigorous academic work. And this is good, because Berger manages to give us an entirely new appreciation of a familiar forest by presenting us with a provocative account of several of its most significant trees. That is to say, the book is not comprehensive; it is guided by its argument, not by an attempt to demonstrate mastery and effort. And that is its great virtue.Provocative is a good word to describe much of it. I don't here refer to what was apparently controversial about the book upon its publication (the focus on Picasso's wealth, and the refusal to countenance hagiography). I'm referring to the way in which Berger announces a hypothesis, and runs with it as if it were true. The riskiness of his inquiry is presented to the reader without any attempt to hide it. So while his demonstrated understanding of Marxism seems at times a bit dim, and his generalizations about Spain seem questionable if not potentially offensive, Berger admirably constructs a series of conclusions from the edifice of symbols he conjured into being, and the total effect is a fully-formed vision of one way of viewing Picasso's achievements, and how they relate to contemporaneous historical events.I have great sympathy for Berger's insistence on visual art objects as documents embedded in, emergent from, and eventually constitutive of social relations. Berger never abandons the view that art has the potential of conjuring into discursive reality, if not social reality, utopia; he admires painters who can either embody the contradictions of the present or who paint truth for a "future society," but doesn't hesitate to disparage works that merely wallow in and do not challenge the present. Berger has exceeded the mundane conventions of both biography and the let's-appreciate-art genre of criticism, and instead has created a work of art criticism that is simultaneously an important account the particular challenges, pressures, and opportunities (seized or lost) of the 20th century.

This 1989 edition of the book includes a brief intro by the author explaining the book's initial reception in 1965 when its subject was still living; and a third chapter written in the '80s, after Picasso's death. In a way a response to the ineffectual hagiography that surrounded Picasso, Berger, a Marxist, attempts to explain the artist as a product of his place (feudal, anarchistic Spain), his time, his personal isolation as an exile and deified celebrity. Berger shows how Picasso's style was a new primitive expression, a rejection of intellectual analysis. His success was this creation, painting as stark emotional experience. His failures, Berger suggests, lay in several works that are rooted in nothing and are thus absurd; his acceptance of bourgeois values that offered nothing of substance; and his lack of originality in his later years. The essay is learned, if a bit erratic as it swerves from notion to notion; Berger's assessment of Picasso's '50s self-mocking drawings is especially good.

What do You think about The Success And Failure Of Picasso (1993)?

There is no doubt that this book is well-written and thoughtful. Yet, the prose is dense and sometimes felt like reading an extended term paper or thesis. Parts of this book were fascinating while others, I felt, got bogged down in analysis unrelated to Picasso's life. For readers who are interested just in learning more about Picasso, it might be a slog of a read; I'd recommend a biography instead. For readers who delight in art historian and social criticism vocabulary, then it might be an ideal read. Overall, my favorite passages (and where I felt I learned the most) were the ones pertaining to his later life and artistic frustrations. The passages about lack of subject matter when compared to other artists of various time periods were also interesting to me. Overall, worth the time to read but not one that I'll reread.
—Melanie Faith

John Berger presents a profound analysis of Picasso's paintings. He shows how Picasso's exile from Spain had a great influence on his painting. The major analysis by Berger is that Picasso was unlike most of his contemporaries. Whereas many painters view their lives through the works they created, Picasso was Picasso. He was viewed through a different prism. All his works were considered masterpieces because he was Picasso. People were afraid to criticize his paintings. Not so Berger. Picasso's greatest work was done during his Cubist phase where he generally worked along other artists. But, often, he was alone and his painting suffered. Berger explains why along with 100s of illustrations of Picasso's work. The great paintings (or sculptures) were erotic ones of his mistress Marie Therese. He was passionate about these works and his other works were less passionate even though still skilled works. Marie Therese was in over 500 of his works.
—Eddie

La oposición «arquitectónicamente correcta» entre la auténtica función y la exteriorización vulgar puede ilustrarse por el contraste entre una simple bomba de agua y un grifo de oro: la primera como un simple objeto que satisface una necesidad vital y el segundo como una excesiva exteriorización de la riqueza. Sin embargo, en estos casos siempre hay que tener cuidado para evitar la trampa que señala John Berger en Success and Failure of Picasso; Berger observa mordazmente que el periodo azul de Picasso, «debido a que se ocupa patéticamente de los pobres, siempre ha sido el favorito de los ricos»8. Un análisis más detallado descubre pronto que esta oposición está sobredeterminada por un fondo mucho más complejo y ambiguo. Cualquiera que visite verdaderas ciudades de miseria (como las favelas brasileñas) no puede evitar observar cómo las improvisadas edificaciones de retazos, incluso construidas con restos de chapas y maderas, están llenas de decoraciones kitsch a menudo ridículamente excesivas, incluyendo grifos de oro (falsos, por supuesto). La gente pobre (mayormente) es la que sueña con grifos de oro, mientras que los ricos prefieren imaginar la simple funcionalidad en el equipamiento de la vivienda: Bill Gates busca ayudar a los africanos pobres proporcionándoles una simple bomba de agua, mientras que los pobres africanos probablemente la embellecerían tan pronto como fuera posible con una ornamentación «kitsch». Es como el irónico comentario que hacía un observador de Rusia en los años de Yeltsin de que las mujeres normales que deseaban parecer atractivas se vestían de prostitutas (la idea común de prostituta: lápiz de labios rojo intenso, joyas baratas, etc.), mientras que las prostitutas de verdad preferían marcar su diferencia vistiendo simples pero caros trajes de «negocios». Realmente, como dice un refrán popular entre la población pobre que participa en los carnavales de Brasil, «solo a los ricos les gusta la modestia; los pobres prefieren el lujo». Viviendo en el Final de los Tiempos Pág.260
—Leonardo

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