The World of Picasso (1881–1973)
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| The World of Picasso |
The World of Picasso is a richly illustrated volume from the Time‑Life Library of Art, first published in 1967 and later revised in the 1970s. Though sometimes listed “by Various,” the principal author is Lael Tucker Wertenbaker, supported by Time‑Life’s editorial staff. The book blends biography, art criticism, and cultural history, presenting Picasso as the defining artist of the 20th century.
🖼️ Content & Structure
- Early Years → Childhood in Málaga and Barcelona, his precocious talent.
- Paris & La Bande → Encounters with poets and painters in Montmartre.
- Cubism Revolution → Collaboration with Georges Braque, dismantling traditional perspective.
- War & Politics → His response to the Spanish Civil War, culminating in Guernica.
- Later Fame → Global recognition, experimentation, and enduring influence.
Each chapter is accompanied by hundreds of reproductions—paintings, sketches, sculptures, and photographs—making the book as much a visual archive as a narrative.
🔎 Critical Insights
- Accessibility: Written for general readers, balancing biography with vivid art commentary.
- Historical Context: Connects Picasso’s art to political upheavals, personal relationships, and philosophical currents.
- Limitations: As a Time‑Life volume, it is not exhaustive scholarship; rather, it’s a curated overview designed for students and enthusiasts.
From introduction
For three decades or more the dominant figure in Western art has been a small muscular Spaniard who in his 80s still exudes vitality. The genius of Pablo Picasso, probably the most prolific artist of all time, has expressed itself with equal virtuosity in painting, drawing, sculpture, graphics and ceramics—and in enough of a variety of styles to have come from half a dozen men. He has produced innovations that shocked, then seen his ideas established as canon. He has influenced artists in. every medium to which he has put his hand—and architects as well, although theirs is a field he has not challenged directly.
Picasso’s career has spanned the entire course of modern art. In his youth, the imprint of Manet and the Impressionists was still fresh; their great successors, Gauguin and Van Gogh and Cézanne, were forging new paths. Picasso’s own artistic coming-of-age coincided with the rise of other brilliant talents, among them Matisse and Braque and Rouault, who would make their mark on 20th Century painting. As the century progressed, spawning such diverse styles as Fauvism,
Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism and Surrealism, Picasso was increasingly involved, often as prime mover and later as philosopher-sage. He has lived to see perhaps the most momentous development of all: the transfer of the world’s art capital from his beloved Paris to New York.
Even among people with little or no knowledge of art Picasso’s name is familiar. American soldiers on leave in Paris at the end of World War II rated him with the Eiffel Tower among the sights they most
ESTO E DOTT Gas wanted to see. As a consequence, an astonished Red Cross, with Picasmade when he was 15. It was taken . so’s consent, arranged tours of his studio. Those who met him, before after his family arrived in Barcelona, he closed his door to be able to resume work, saw a short but well-built
Bue Майы foa man with brilliant black eyes that seemed to pierce through whatever
art training. Every chapter in 4 à р : А attracted his notice. Picasso’s eyes are unforgettable; they rarely blink,
this book opens with a portrait of Picasso, made by himself, a and often open uncommonly wide, reflecting like polished dark mirrors pa oerapken onopotber раннее, the image they are intent upon. It is surely more than coincidence Each one relates either in style or 2 : 5
that eyes are а peculiar hallmark of his art. Не has painted and drawn thousands of them in a thousand forms: with photographic exactitude,
or as crosses and dots, or in the shapes of birds, boats or beetles. He has
mood to his art of the period.