Pablo Picasso
Painter
1881-10-25 – 1973-04-08
Pablo Picasso was a Spanish artist whose work transformed modern art through movements including Cubism. His prolific output across painting, sculpture, and printmaking made him one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Books by Pablo Picasso
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Picasso
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Picasso's Picassos
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Quotes by Pablo Picasso
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There's nothing more difficult than a line.
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Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can't explain them. People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.
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What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who only has eyes, if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far from it: at the same time he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so abundantly? No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.
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The world doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?
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Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone
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Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things.
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There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun
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If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes.
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it.
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The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.
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Whatever the source of emotion that drives me to create, I want to give it a form which has some connection with the visible world, even if it is only to wage war on that world....I want my paintings to be able to defend themselves to resist the invader, just as though there were razor blades on all surfaces so no one could touch them without cutting his hands.
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When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.
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Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction. ― Pablo Picasso
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When I was a child my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll be the pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.
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What do you think an artist is? ...he is a political being, constantly aware of the heart breaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.
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Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
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Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? no. Just as one can never learn how to paint.
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Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.
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It takes a very long time to become young.
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God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.
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