Success and Failure of Picasso

by John Berger

Book Overview

At the height of his powers, Pablo Picasso was the artist as revolutionary, breaking through the niceties of form in order to mount a direct challenge to the values of his time. At the height of his fame, he was the artist as royalty: incalculably wealthy, universally idolized--and wholly isolated.In this stunning critical assessment, John Berger--one of this century's most insightful cultural historians--trains his penetrating gaze upon this most...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394739000
• ISBN13: 9780394739007
• Release Date: March 1980
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 210 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

What's a genius anyway?

John Berger is a critic with a real sense of decency: never too high-falutin, smart and responsible. He asks us to see beautiful objects, not in their staid isolation in the museum setting, but in the context of social history. It is obvious that Picasso was a genius. He saw and drew things that evoke wonders and passions. But is that all? The central essay here is "The Moment of Cubism." Berger paints a general portrait of a distinct era of possibility: artistic and social and political. The explosion of Cubism is but a moment in a larger moment of real revolution. Not just "ways of seeing" but ways of living, thinking, hoping. Berger reminds us that Picasso needed the times (Europe), he also, more specifically needed friends and support. After all, there were two who brought forth cubism; moreover, there were the likes of Cezanne.Berger asks the question that is overlooked in the constant reverence of Picasso's potency (echoing Benjamin Buchloh on the "ciphers of regression"): was Picasso genius throughout his career or was that moment (historical and aesthetic) the real genius?(For more on Berger, read his two inspired novels: "G." and "To the Wedding.")