His Vampire Art

I should have known better, exibits at Le Grand Palais always draw loads of people, besides there was a lot of hype about "Picasso et les Maîtres"that started in October and ends on the 2nd of February.

I was bound to queue up outside for a while before entering the galleries, but brave enough to try. I don't usually run to the must-see exhibits everyone talks about, and I sensed the marketing behind the venture(because almost all the most famous painters were there) but still the idea of showing Picasso's paintings along with other works from famous painters he drew inspiration from was interesting.

Despite the cold feet and the crowd, I did enjoy it...a lot. Sometimes the method was a bit too systematic and convenient and the parallels were forced on us, but most of the time it was relevant and intriguing. The genius used to be a student and fed on art that went before him. Picasso called himself a Minotaur, and admitted to the predation existing in his portraits El Greco-style, in his tributes to Poussain, Goya, Ingres, Delacroix, le Nain, or obviously in all his variations on various famous paintings.

Of course, the confrontation leads to comparisons, not necessarily to Picasso's advantage. For instance his numerous (40!)variations on Velazquez ' Meninas are interesting; Picasso parses, dissects and eventually pieces the puzzle together, but Velasquez remains the Master and it's his painting we admire. However the series of Tarots, as Mallraux called them, Picasso's paintings inspired by gentlemen from El Siglo del Oro (by Velazquez again but also Rembrandt and Shakespeare even), often musketeer-like, were fabulous. I also loved his Chat et Homard which I had never seen until yesterday.

The exhibit is worth seeing if only for the numerous masterpieces on display. It exposes Picasso's artistic cannibalism but also reveals his ideal museum, or at least part of that one that lay in his imagination, and above all, his idea of meta-painting, when the painting becomes the subject of his painting. It shows us that canvas can be models just like any living person or any still life.

PS: Le déjeuner sur l'herbe de Manet et une des variations de cette toile(la plus réussie à mon avis) par Picasso.