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Original Title:	Picasso: Creator and Destroyer
ISBN:	0380707551 (ISBN13: 9780380707553)
Edition Language:	English
Characters:	Picasso

Picasso: Creator And Destroyer

Arianna Huffington

Paperback | Pages: 296 pages

Rating: 3.81 | 591 Users | 59 Reviews

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In a biography I am looking for an impartial presentation. I neither like hagiographies or those biographies that negatively skew facts. The author of this book chooses to present a preponderance of negative over positive assertions concerning the artist, his life and his art. By book’s end, given such a negative presentation, I no longer trusted anything I was told.

Much reads as gossip. Often we are told opinions of those involved in disputes. Tell me, how impartial can these views be?!

I by no means am stating that Picasso was an angel. He was arrogant, cruel and self-centered. Humility was a concept foreign to the man’s character. Sex was paramount, both in his life and in his art. When he grew old and couldn’t perform sexually and as physical infirmities mounted, one can easily imagine the effect this had on him. When he died at the age of 91 he was not thinking clearly, but who does? I feel that a biographer must take such into consideration if a balanced analysis of the subject’s personality is to be achieved. Picasso’s personality and his family circumstances are covered but not in a balanced manner.

Picasso was an innovative painter, sculptor, ceramicist, printmaker, poet and playwright. He was always doing something new! He never stood still in his practice of art. In trying new art forms he looked at and listened to others, then broke all the rules. What he did, he did in his own way, and what he did worked! He expressed in his art an essence that few others could achieve.

The book moves forward chronologically and all his different art forms are covered. We follow his paintings from the “Blue Period” to experiments with primitive art to different types of cubism to the “Green Period” to Dadaism to Surrealism and sexualism in art. And of course Guernica, not an art form but a monument of art expression. Along the way we follow his family, his lovers, his acquaintances and his communist ties.

When I look at art I don’t want it explained, and certainly not by one who dislikes the art and who dislikes the person who made it. If the artwork doesn’t speak to you, then so be it. I feel strongly that art should be separated from the actions of those who create it. I can strongly dislike the behavior of an artist and yet still appreciate that person’s art. I believe Huffington intertwines the two.

What I did like in this book is the author’s presentation of the other artists that Picasso rubbed shoulders with in Montparnasse and Montmartre at the turn of the 20th century, Paris of the Belle Époque era. I personally was interested in what we are told about Gertrude Stein, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Henri Rousseau, Alberto Giacometti, Guillaume Apollinaire, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, and Sergei Diaghilev. Interesting tidbits and lots about how each of them interacted with the others.

I did point out that there is a lot of gossip to be found within the pages of this book. The nastiest portions focus on how the mistresses, wives, children and servants viewed one another. Such gossip doesn’t lead to a better understanding of relationships.

People were devoted to Picasso. As he is drawn here, this is incredibly hard to believe. I see this as a major fault of the book.

Picasso said, “It is not what an artist does that counts, but what he is.“ Surely this will give food for thought in observing Picasso’s own life.

Picasso was a seismograph of his age. He lived from 1881 - 1973. He was tormented and filled with rage. He challenged and he shocked. One perhaps can rightly ask if in his art one senses heart. Maybe in some, but in others that is quite simply not the message Picasso is trying to convey.

We are told that Huffington has interviewed several who knew Picasso and has researched documentation that already exists. The book is studded with quotes, but some of them are from unspecified sources. She has spoken to Françoise Gilot, one of his numerous mistresses and the mother of two of his four children. She has in fact written her own biography on Picasso: Life with Picasso. Personally, I would recommend reading that rather than getting the second hand references as they are presented here.

The audiobook is narrated by Wanda McCaddon. She reflects through her intonation the feelings the author expresses in her lines. I think a narrator should help the reader understand what an author is saying, so I have no complaint about this. I must point out that to listen to the audiobook I was forced to slow down the narration speed to 75%. Only at this speed did it flow naturally. Only at this speed did it sound as people really do talk! At other speeds you will detect a distortion.

Details Appertaining To Books Picasso: Creator And Destroyer

Title	:	Picasso: Creator And Destroyer
Author	:	Arianna Huffington
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	First Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 296 pages
Published	:	June 21st 1993 by Avon Books (first published January 1st 1988)
Categories	:	Biography. Art. Nonfiction. Biography Memoir

Rating Appertaining To Books Picasso: Creator And Destroyer

Ratings: 3.81 From 591 Users | 59 Reviews

Criticize Appertaining To Books Picasso: Creator And Destroyer

This was not an average biography of Picasso. It was sometimes grueling, sometimes maddening and sometimes difficult to follow the flow of the language. Arianna Huffington's prose style, at least in this book, is a bit choppy and I found myself re-reading passages because I lost the meaning as the sentences sometimes seemed to be constructed at angles. For instance: ..."Despite his protestations that he would do everything in his power to ensure that art would 'continue to be an aim, under no

This is the second book on Picasso I didn't finish. Why? He was a royal prick, with a capital P! I love the man's art. He's my favorite artist. So, it's painful to read about the destruction he caused in the lives of those around him as well as his own. Finally, after 141 pages, I gave up. Maybe I'll never try another book on Picasso. He was just too much of an animal and I don't want to dampen my enthusiasm for his artwork any further. Pity.

Got tired of reading about what a creep he was. Gave up.

Not bad. Picasso is certainly a much more intriguing character than Arianna Huffington's writing style. It was a good read once I got over her style and (to me) odd sentence structure coming out of left field every once in a while.Good overview of Picasso's life that makes me want to explore his life a bit more. I'm eying Francoise Gilot's "Life with Picasso" because it purportedly sheds much more light on his work methods and approaches to his work, and as an artist herself as well as one of

I had read my first book on Picasso already when I was a teenager and it was the well-known Life with Picasso by Françoise Gilot. I could not understand back then why actually Picasso got married to that Russian ballerina Olga Koklova. Now I know it thanks to this very thorough and systematic biography by Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington. I did not know as well that one of Picassos numerous names was Juan Nepomuceno after his godfather. I was surprised to know how very sociable he was. I have

I went into this book knowing little about Picasso aside from the myth that he created around himself and finished with a much deeper understanding of who he was as a person... Really illuminated the anger, myth, and misogyny in his work. Definitely recommend this one- well written- as much as I ended up not liking Picasso the man, I couldn't put the book down!

I do not understand why this book has such harsh criticism; I found it to be captivating! People say that the author has an agenda and is trying to make Picasso look bad, but I found her tone to be very neutral in the sens that she only uses what the people around him said about him. She takes nothing away from his genius, his creativity and importance in the developpement of modern art. She shows him for what he really was; a flawed, imperfect human being and if you do not like to see a