¿What's the big deal about Picasso and other modern painters?

Answer 1

You have to consider the time they were painted when asking a question like this. They were great, because they were avaunt Gard (spelling) they were different and full of alternative means for expression. Mood and intent were painted not as a portrait of a human showing these , not painted using the human expression of a face or carefully placed hands but rather Picasso showed mood with colors and the sharp edges of inatimate objects, twisted and bent out of the normal fields of proportion that people were used to looking at and calling it art.

Da Da ism (again, spelling) cubisim, modernisim, and other alternative forms of art emerged out from a time where the art world was barren and dormant and lacking anything new of life altering in any way. It, up until men like Picasso and Dali and all of their contemporaries came along was all about going to a museum and looking at something 100 or more years old.

This was fresh, new and it ushered in a new image of art. Modernism is awesome BECAUSE it isn't Rembrandt. BECAUSE it isn't some classic painting perfectly vectored and capturing natural light. People had quite enough of men mocking the dimensional talents of God Himself in art, then, when Picasso and the rest emerged... it was time to find beauty and contemplation and awe in art in its alternative polar opposite disconnected seemingly chaotic and wonderfully playful and colorful and somber and moody.

Like I said... Consider the time they lived in. Once again, even this has with time become considered an all too easy art form, reproduced half to death and mocked in such a way where people assume it is simple to do when it isin't and the kinds of people who don't know what they are looking at actually buy the garbage because they assume it is somehow great. It isin't.

Not everyone can be Picasso.

Now... it is time for some young artist to emerge and yet agan change the art world. Maybe digitally? Maybe with laser light rather than paint? and for another 50 to 100 years. men will discuss it debate it and claim or deny its value. But it is all art and art reflects the hands of the artist always. Like an outward image flipped and reflected by the eye of the man who perceived a bit beyond the times he was limited to and extended himself outward to reach for something new.

Answer 2

They were making a commentary on prior art forms. Rebels to the core.

I am not a big rock and roll fan, but you and I can both imagine Punk Rock, when it began, being a commentary (and rejection) of the current rock standard of the time.
Grunge was another trend that was rejecting what was happening in commercial music.

Think of Picasso like you would Bob Dylan -- everyone thought he was from the Folk Music scene, but he rebelled and strapped on an electric guitar and rocked out.

Hope the comparison helps you to understand why so many think that Picasso was a genius. He rebelled, he made a commentary on the current scene AND his work stands on it's own in it's own right.

Sorry, I had to come back and add this -- Picasso's painting Guernica was also political. His emotions etc. could only be expressed in this abstract way. Look at the painting sometime, it's chilling. It's depiction of the horror of War is so powerful it is actually displayed in the United Nations building.

Answer 3

Nothing much that I can see! Salvador Dali rated Jan Vermeer van Delft as the greatest painter of all time and said that one drop of his divine blue pigment is worth more than all the paintings that followed it. The best painting is the most realistic he said. He observed that artists have lost the skill of the Baroque painters and try to see who can be the most eccentric instead. He had to do some of that too. I agree with Dali. The answers I see here are amusing. What a load of "ngao si" (as my Chinese lover says)! Dali said Picasso is destructive to Art. There is an apocryphal tale that Picasso said he was a mountebank selling trash to fools. If he didn't say it, he should have indeed! How sad that eccentricity and obscurantism are mistaken for originality and profundity.

Answer 4

I don't necessarily like looking at Picasso's works; but, I do like his works. There's a difference. I understand his greatness. In the art world, what's great isn't necessarily what's beautiful to the eye or perceived as hard to create to the average person. What's great in art is a lot about inventiveness & originality. To this day, Picasso is great because he was daring and bold. He stood against the times and societal norms. Back in the days, art was directed by religion, society and many times by the government. Picasso (& Braque) had the balls to stand out on his own, to create something that most people would disdain, turn away from and spit on. He did not succumb to the norms and dared to be different and innovative. However, it did help that he had a great guardian angel to help him promote his works and to help publicize it. If it were not for this person who knows where he might be today, maybe along the other many great unknown artists who were swept to the waste side and forgotten.

Answer 5

Well, aside from the elaboration part that has been done for the previous answer, just to make it brief is that 'revolution' started at that era. Those were like the 'world war of Arts' with Expressionism, Impressionism, Dadaism, Cubism, Avant-garde, Futurism, Pop Art, etc. Before this, artists are a bunch of craftmens and slave for the riches. Modern art is where the whole changes started...where everyone started to see the artists as some sorta nobel profession (in a way). It might look junks as we see it now, but at that time, who would have thought of these kinda ideas? Think about it.

Answer 6

The big deal is that he is one of the most well known artists in history, he's the co-founder of cubism and he produced around 13,500 paintings, more drawings besides. Not to mention the fact it must have taken serious balls to paint what he really saw not just what the critics at the time wanted to see.
Some 7 yearolds who don't even know their own phone numbers could tell you who he is, so even if you think little of him i think theres a couple of million peeps who would disagree.

Answer 7

first of all Picasso wasn't a modernist painter he was the pioneer in cubism together with Braque and he was an abstract painter and sculptor now the big deal here seems to me that they saw things and life on a very diff rent way u seem to see urs

Answer 8

I don't think it was so much the paintings themselves, I mean of course people liked them,but it was more than that. They were men who used their artistic abilities to show people how to begin to think differently about themselves and the world they lived in. They showed them that there is more than one way of looking at things, because even though everyone looked at the same paintings, they all saw something different. They taught that art and life is all about perception,and that was the big deal.

Answer 9

Good promoters, gullible clientele, University Professors.

Answer 10

Oh, I know! I mean, their paintings don't even *look* like anything!