Picasso and the art of the older mind

A sculpture of a guitar by one of my 5th grade students

Imagine this...
You take a walk around an antique chair and you look carefully at all of the wooden bits, the curve of the back, the spindles radiating upward, the polished armrests, the intricate designs of the turned legs, and the full seat molded to hold your tush comfortably, at least as long as it takes you to partake in a meal.

Now imagine this...
Have a seat in that chair or plop down in another one out of view of the studied chair and draw what you remember.

I used to do that exercise with my students at school.

If you observed a chair from one perspective, you would be creating an illusion of a three-dimensional object on flat paper. Pablo Picasso would object to that. There is nothing jutting out from the paper, like an arm or a leg. The paper is flat! Why create such an illusion?

A more appropriate interpretation of a life on a flat surface would be to draw the bits and pieces of that trip you took around the chair in random places on the paper because that is how your mind remembers seeing it.

That is Cubism and the inventive mind of a very famous artist.

Pablo Picasso became so famous that people often use his name as a synonym for an artist. "Aren't you just a regular Picasso?" a parent might say to a budding artist in their family. Kind of like asking for a Kleenex when any soft, generic tissue would do.

"Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not." - Picasso

Last week, I went to my first lecture in the public library as a retiree. It was on Picasso. I listened to an author tell us about the women in Picasso's life. His timeline of events in the artist's portfolio mirrored the rise and fall of his love life. For example, when Picasso broke up with a lover, he entered his "blue period." It was an interesting philosophy and one that filled a book the author was selling at the end of the lecture.

Then just this week, I read an article asking us to consider if the next Picasso could be a robot.

Well, if a robot can do an observational drawing or even a cubist interpretation of life, perhaps we could call it an artist. But if the robot feels upset over the loss of his cuter female counterpart, will he impart those emotions in his work? I think not.

Realistic drawing of a face by Picasso

Also by Picasso

Picasso was a genius. He could draw a realistic portrait like nobody's business. But his fame rose out of his experiments with Cubism. Unfortunately, many art programs teach Picasso's theories as early as Kindergarten, with no benefit to the child or to their growing appreciation of art history. A five-year-old is way too young to understand how Picasso changed the world's perception of art. It has taken me a lifetime to appreciate all that he and many others have gifted us with their brilliance. And I am still learning.

Today I will attend another lecture, this one on sewing as an art form. Can a robot sew? Sure there are factories filled with them. But this living and breathing artist sews random objects together like torn notes and receipts. I am excited to see what his hand stitched creations look like.

Lectures like these are often attended by the over-55 communities who play pickleball in the morning and come to hear a free discussion in the afternoon, keeping their minds young and hopefully their bellies full with some free refreshments. I don't mind joining them. I might nod off in the middle of a long and dreary lecture, just like the older guy with his walker sitting next to me. But I also hope to live my life with the curiosity of a child, just like Picasso.