Dove with Any Other Name
ⒸM. Tone 2021
Lindsey: See, like I said, it's not too crowded. There's no one lined up at the entrance. Picasso is so popular you usually have to wait at least half an hour to get in.
Paul: I guess not many people would risk infection to come to a museum in the middle of a pandemic.
Lindsay: This time I can take my time to look at the paintings I like, thanks to the COVID-19.
Paul: You really love Picasso, don't you?
Lindsey: Of course I do. Picasso is my second favorite after
Matisse. Look, the first piece is Dove of Peace. It’s so cute, isn’t it?
Paul: I hate to tell you this now, but honestly I’m not too crazy about Picasso, especially his later works like this one. I just can’t figure out what's so great about them.
Lindsey: You don't have to understand them. Don't think, feel, you know.
Paul: But what am I supposed to feel about something that looks like a child's doodle?
Lindsey: Shh, can you speak a little lower? Look, the guard is staring at us.
Paul: Oh, sorry. Picasso was already an accomplished painter in his early teens, wasn't he?
Lindsey: In the conventional sense, yes. For example, that drawing over there. Can you believe he drew it when he was just twelve years old?
Paul: It’s really amazing. I wonder why he gave up all his skills and ended up painting pictures any child could paint.
Lindsey: If you told Picasso he painted like a child, I’m sure he would take it as a great compliment.
Paul: Oh, really? Why would he do that?
Lindsey: Because that’s exactly what he tried hard to do. He said “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
Paul: Interesting idea! If that was what he wanted to do, why didn’t he do so from the beginning, instead of wasting his time learning how to paint?
Lindsey: He just couldn’t. Or it would be better to say that he wasn’t allowed to do so. Picasso received formal artistic training from his father. His father was an academic artist, who firmly believed proper training required disciplined copying of the masters of the past, which Picasso did faithfully. All the works in this room were created during that period.
Paul: If he had continued to hone his skills that way, wouldn't he have become an even greater painter?
Lindsey: I don’t think so. He would have become just another skillful academic painter and would have soon been forgotten. And he was too much of a genius to live that way. He said something like “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” He couldn't help but experiment with different styles of painting. Neoclassical, cubism, etc, etc.
Paul: And doodlism, so to speak.
Lindsey: You can call it whatever you want, but what he means by painting like a child is not painting just unskillfully but being completely free from any fixed style. Picasso was one of the first artists to show a painter can paint in any way he likes.
Paul: I see. Now, back to Dove of Peace. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is it OK to think that the drawing is valuable only because the doodle is signed by Picasso, who created masterpieces in all styles? Otherwise, it’d be garbage. That’s all it is, isn’t it?
Lindsey: Well, you have a point there, but I think the dove with anyone else’s signature would look as cute to me. Anyway, why don’t you stop talking and look closely at all the exhibits before criticizing him further? Who knows, you might change your opinion?
Paul: Sure, why not?
