| No artist has affected modern art more
than Pablo Picasso. The thousands of masterpieces he created changed the way
people thought about art. Picasso was perhaps the most talented and successful
artist who ever lived. Pablo Picasso was born in 1881 in a small town on the southern coast of Spain. His father was a painter who taught art. Picasso showed exceptional talent at an early age and, by the time he was in his teens, painted better than his father or any of the local art teachers. At sixteen, Picasso was sent to the Royal Academy of Madrid, where students drew from plaster casts and copied works of the old masters. Picasso felt these assignments were pointless and began to work on his own. Picasso's father soon became angry with his son's rebellious behavior, long hair, and strange clothes. He believed that Picasso was wasting talent and scolded him, "Why don't you cut your hair and paint sensibly?" In 1900, Picasso left for Paris -- then the center of the art world. He lived in a cold, rundown building, painting constantly, sometimes surviving for days on only a piece of bread. During these years, his art reflected his gloomy surroundings. The homeless were subject of many of his fairly realistic early paintings. After seeing African masks and sculptures(雕塑), his works became more simplified and angular(僵硬的) leading up to the revolutionary new style known as Cubism. Picasso didn't sell much of his works during these early years. But he worked continuously, always experimenting with different styles of painting. Though Picasso lived to be ninety-two and became the most famous artist in the world, he spoke of his youthful days in Paris as "the happiest time in my life". |