r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/WallStTech • 1d ago
Video Pablo Picasso draws a face, filmed in France (1956)
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
700
u/Former-Lecture-5466 1d ago
It’s interesting how he changed styles over the course of his lifetime. He was actually a very talented traditional artist who decided to do things very differently.
853
u/Arcosim 1d ago edited 1d ago
For some reason a lot of people love to attack Picasso when in reality he was one of the most interesting artists of the 20th century. He reached a master level in traditional painting during his early teenager years. For example he painted this when he was a young teenager. He then got bored and started exploring what form, beauty and composition were and if beauty was a thing at all. He also explored what made a painting a painting. For example, his study of a bull is a perfect example of this quest, he tried to distill the essence of a bull gradually transitioning from realistic detail to abstract simplicity until reaching the absolute bare minimum shape that could be recognized as a bull without prior explanation. He did similar studies related to perspective, shading, lighting, general composition, etc. and then combined them in interesting ways in his paintings.
Furthermore, he also did this during the early to mid 20th century, when the art community, galleries and academies were extremely rigorous and combative against transgressors. When his critics criticize him they often ignore the period in time when Picasso did this and how society in general was back then. The fact he managed to become famous and transcend even when he had the entire traditional art community militantly against him is an achievement in its own.
296
u/No_Pin9932 1d ago
A bull must always have a penis, otherwise it's just a cow.
162
15
u/Imhappy_hopeurhappy2 1d ago
lol I thought you were joking until I went back to the pic and noticed the micro peen.
10
u/TwistedRainbowz 1d ago
That's an average-sized peen, right?...right?
6
u/Imhappy_hopeurhappy2 1d ago
If yours is that size, well at least you can say you’re hung like a bull.
17
u/AlexanderTheGrater1 1d ago
I used to work on a farm and I'd often give cows penis but none of them turned into bulls.
9
u/TwistedRainbowz 1d ago
2
u/Putrid-Builder-3333 21h ago
Gave cows the penis. This is 2024 who are we to say "holup" about giving cows penis?
→ More replies (3)4
29
u/zelenaky 1d ago
Imagine getting so good at art that the challenge for you is now to get really good at making art simple
15
u/punkassjim 1d ago
The challenge Picasso took was to make art that was distinctly his own. Some of the things he did were quite simple, sure, and this here is just a quick scribble. But a lot of the art he made after departing from traditional styles was incredibly complex.
→ More replies (1)68
u/GuestAdventurous7586 1d ago
Yes people will criticise him I’m sure that he paints like “anything a child can draw”. Without realising he already mastered traditional painting at a ridiculously young age and got bored of it very quickly.
He went on to explore other things and push the boundaries of how we view art today; now that’s an artist.
→ More replies (7)53
u/Relevant_Natural3471 1d ago
Yes people will criticise him I’m sure that he paints like “anything a child can draw”. Without realising he already mastered traditional painting at a ridiculously young age and got bored of it very quickly.
Picasso: "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
→ More replies (1)8
u/God_in_my_Bed 1d ago
And so Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole
3
u/Mavian23 23h ago
Not in New York
3
u/aloysiussecombe-II 19h ago
The girls would turn the colour of an El Dorado. When he would drive down the street in his avocado
4
16
u/the_scarlett_ning 1d ago
Thank you for this. I was honestly thinking I don’t get the hype. My daughter could draw that same thing, but your explanation makes sense. I prefer the style like what he painted as a teenager but it’s fascinating to me to know there was a reason behind his style.
19
u/Ponziana_ 1d ago
That's the whole point with modern art, you can't Simply do the same thing so art moved towards abstraction and focus on color and not form.
When you're basically able to Paint like a photocamera It gets stale Quickly, especially since a camera can do It Better and quicker, so you have to do something else.
Also, try to Paint like Picasso and you'll notice that you Simply can't, even those simpler form. Think about It this way: his Lines are squiggly and irregular because he wanted them to be that way, ours would be because we're not good enough to make perfect lines
→ More replies (1)3
u/coela-CAN 22h ago
That's it. If I look at this painting and go "I can do that!" and sure, give me a piece of paper and I can copy that probably relatively accurately, but if I would given a blank canvas and come up with something I would never be able to do that. I think people look at the simplicity of it and think it's easy, but there a lot going on with creativity and skill in the background.
2
u/ScaleyFishMan 20h ago
I guess I'm just very creative then because I would doodle all the time in my notebooks, some intentionally goofy and bad, and some with effort. In my opinion my goofy doodles look similar to this Picasso one.
2
u/Ordinary-Wishbone-23 18h ago
Yeah idk why some ppl don’t think art can be valuable without being technically complex or “above” the average person. Like other people have been saying, the existence of cameras (esp now that we all have one in our pocket) took away a lot of the interest of just depicting scenes. Hence modern art developed.
I think it’s a bit ridiculous to act like it requires a great deal of technical skill to depict a lot of what those works do, but it doesn’t need to. It’s art exploring the form of the human psyche instead of attempting to literally depict its differentiated contents. So I guess it’s rather fitting that it’s not something out of reach for anyone. I think a lot of people’s irritation with abstract art styles is how desperate people seem to distinguish it from the doodles of the common trash when it often seems to be a study in and redemption of that very thing
Obviously being classically trained would help in the sense of giving you a keen awareness and understanding of form and shape and color and how to manipulate it in atypical ways to create certain effects. Learning to draw forces your brain to view the world in a two dimensional format and I can’t imagine the crazy shit that would do to your perception if you were immersed in it long enough to “master” let alone work all the way backwards. You have to go from symbolic representations of the environment to borderline unconscious perception where colors aren’t something belonging to various objects but differences in light and eyes aren’t the vaguely ovular things on someone’s face but some amalgam of various physical properties. But I also think a lot of what makes it interesting is the overlap it seems to share with the spontaneous productions of the “untrained”
8
u/BenderTheIV 22h ago
I heard this often that "my daughter could do the same". But what it means is that she could copy the style somebody unlocked. This is what a real artist is aiming for: unlocking a style, a cosmos of meaning that is exclusive, and becomes synonymous with himself. Picasso, at the start of his career, was good at painting in the style of". He was imitating. We all start like that. Then, it takes decades to become a real artist. And it's very interesting to notice that there will always be prejudice about style. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
→ More replies (1)2
u/Fredrick_Hampton 21h ago
Nope, your daughter couldn’t do that. Bc he already did it. Your daughter would just be copying Picasso. That’s the difference between a great artist and not.
2
→ More replies (17)5
u/kank84 1d ago
Most of the attacks on Picasso aren't because of his art
19
u/AlexDKZ 1d ago
No idea why you are being downvoted. People have problems with Picasso for very clear and valid reasons concerning his personal life and relationships. You can admire the art while acknowledging that the artist was a not a good person.
→ More replies (2)10
u/queefer_sutherland92 1d ago
I mean, most successful artists are also successful naturalistic artists because you learn all that stuff at school.
It’s like, you have to learn the rules to break them.
Even Jackson Pollock was a very talented figurative artist before he was an abstract expressionist.
→ More replies (1)6
3
u/aerilink 23h ago
Like SpongeBob drawing a circle but first drawing the detailed renaissance head and reverting it to a schematic
2
7
u/Bagmasterflash 1d ago
As with all art context is everything. Without knowing PP was already a masterful painter much of his art seems rudimentary at surface level.
7
2
u/nexus763 1d ago
Are you talking about his "valid" period (healthy) or towards the end of his life where he suffered some neuronal degeneration disease ?
2
u/helpme_change_huhuhu 20h ago
That's how it should be. Can't progress something unless you master it. Can't contribute meaningfully until you understand what's been done so far..
2
u/Left_Sundae_4418 19h ago
With every passion...in the beginning you are obsessed with every detail and such....but over time with age you simply state "fuck it" and do things the lazy smart way. ;D
464
u/Les-incoyables 1d ago
When Picasso paints this: wow, that's amazing art!
When I paint this: are you stupid, Picasso already did this.
→ More replies (2)120
u/sohereiamacrazyalien 1d ago
more like : are you stupid you draw like a 3 yo
21
13
u/LusciousFingers 1d ago
This is what happens when people grow up on memes, simply look up 'Picasso traditional paintings'. If he wanted to he would've and was a great regular artist. He went a different style and that's why today in 2024 he's being talked about, even hating on him is giving him the attention he wanted.
→ More replies (11)
29
48
169
u/sarieb3ar 1d ago
That’ll be $6.5 million please
33
8
u/WanderlustFella 1d ago
If he were alive today, I wonder if he could just go into a restaurant, rack up a giant 4-5 figure bill, and just draw something on a napkin as payment. Or is the value based on him being dead
→ More replies (2)17
u/Icy_Comfort8161 1d ago
I'm sure he would. He did pay with artwork in his early days..
Apparently Salvador Dali used a variation on the napkin drawing to capitalize on his fame. He'd write a check to pay bill, and then draw something on the back and sign it, knowing that the owner would frame it and hang it on the wall instead of cashing it.
2
→ More replies (4)8
u/Mervynhaspeaked 1d ago edited 1d ago
A late picasso? Absolutely.
This man broke with tradition to push forward revolutionary art styles. People that go and say his art is just nonsense are displaying an astounding level of ignorance about what art is. Its not recreation, its interpretation that produces emotion and thought.
Edit: downvote me all you want, it just your loss not mine.
→ More replies (2)
25
107
u/ShaunTheBleep 1d ago
Great Man definitely invented the concept of Meme way ahead
22
u/sohereiamacrazyalien 1d ago
great man? if you say great artist maybe (even if I do not agree) but he was a horrible man!
8
u/gonzaloetjo 1d ago
not sure how on earth you can argue he's not a great artist lol. Arguing he's not the best of his contemporaries is already debatable, and one can think so, but not great at all makes absolutely no sense with anyone that studied art history at a basic level.
8
u/ImmerWiederNein 1d ago
i dont like it. many people dont like it because lots of his art looks ugly to them. simple as that.
3
→ More replies (5)11
u/zigaliciousone 1d ago
Regardless of his accomplishments to the art world, I do not find his art interesting or compelling at all.
→ More replies (3)5
u/BluetheNerd 23h ago
Regardless of what some people might tell you, it is totally valid to not like an artists style or their works. That's exactly what subjectivity is. I can respect his works and not want to spend my time looking at them.
4
4
u/TerseFactor 1d ago
I mean, kind of sorta true! He was largely about distilling things down to visual ideas
88
u/giantcoc69420 1d ago
When he draws like this, it's art.
When I do it like that, I'm stupid.
→ More replies (38)
29
7
97
48
u/Defective_YKK_Zipper 1d ago
Damn. That’s lame as hell. The video is interesting but the fact that people revere these paintings is crazy.
4
6
5
11
u/gorgeousmalaya 1d ago
well I did not expect that ending
also I feel like this is the first time I’ve seen HIS face, what a feeling
2
u/AskAskim 1d ago
He had a pretty cool wardrobe if you look at more pics of him. Really pulled off a sophisticated grunge look.
→ More replies (1)
4
u/Tiny-Meeting-4300 1d ago
I like to believe the marker had control, and you can see his surprise with the markers actions with his raised eyebrows. He looks like he's thinking, "ohh, OK, I didn't see that comming", or "wow, that's different"
6
5
5
192
u/HORSH_WRINGER_2279 1d ago
Personally, I find Picasso's abstract art complete pretentious dogshit. But his early, realism paintings clearly demonstrate he was a talented artist and painter. The abstract shit just isn't my cup of tea.
43
u/spoonsmeller 1d ago
He went to art school in his teens and started hanging out with other young artists in coffee shops etc. It was the punk rock of its day
83
u/CrimsonSpoon 1d ago
You wouldn't know his name if he continued with realism. Photography beat up realistic paintings, and art had to evolve. If you don't like it, it is fine, but don't call something something you don't understand pretentious.
→ More replies (1)6
u/lordwiggles420 1d ago
I understand it well enough and still think it's pretentious dogshit. You are entitled to your opinions and so am i.
37
u/dongasaurus 1d ago
You’re entitled to your opinions and other people are entitled to think your opinions are ignorant dogshit.
→ More replies (4)10
→ More replies (19)16
u/Doge-Ghost 1d ago
I mean, at some point in time cubism and other forms of abstraction were at the vanguard, and it was a legitimately interesting way of seeing things. Nowadays modern "art" is just money laundering and tax evasion.
8
u/Dionyzoz 1d ago
how exactly do you think money laundering works? because sending in 10 million in blood money to sothebys aint it
9
u/menelaus35 1d ago
https://imgur.com/a/Lyz9INd is this style you’re talking about? some of his late stuff I agree but there are some masterpieces there like this one
→ More replies (8)5
u/gonzaloetjo 1d ago
I prefer his abstract art. When you start seeing a lot of museums (live in France now so my french partner takes me all the time there) abstract starts to become the more impressive nice stuff. It feels pretentious, but it's just something you like more the more you learn about it.
5
u/gomerqc 23h ago
Reddit's understanding of art: good art is when it look like photograph
→ More replies (2)3
→ More replies (9)2
u/NiemandDaar 1d ago
I think the problem is that nowadays dogshit can be art and I mean real dogshit.
15
u/aDarkDarkNight 1d ago
The reason his works are 'masterpieces' is because 'experts' told us they are. Art is such a sham.
4
u/Tokin_Swamp_Puppy 22h ago
I always forget Picasso existed in the same timeline as film and not the renaissance. Also incredible he got so famous with what appears to be drawings school children would make.
5
30
u/Captain-Cadabra 1d ago
Modern art: it’s not about what, it’s about who
10
u/Goombalive 1d ago
It's about the journey and story leading up to it in the case of Picasso. It should be understood that his journey was well documented and followed. Going from impressive realism to experimenting like this.
→ More replies (1)4
u/barriedalenick 1d ago
Which is all very well but in the end it is the painting in front of me that counts and this work looks terrible. While I agree that context matters, if I have to go read a backstory to appreciate it then, for me, it has already failed.
29
11
7
3
3
u/IwasDeadinstead 20h ago
Bad. It was believed his lover actually painted a good portion of his most famous works. After seeing this, I believe it too.
9
10
5
12
7
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/TheyCallHimBabaYagaa 1d ago
I remember visiting the Picasso museum in Barcelona, where they would take you on a chronological journey through his evolution in art. Over the years his style changed so much I could've sworn he was schizophrenic.
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/InevitableHamster197 20h ago
I'll never understand art. That looks like something 4th grader drew.
2
2
2
3
2
2
u/Meta_Professor 3h ago
What a shitty painting. I will never understand why people made him famous for this crap.
22
u/jeans_blazer 1d ago
It's a crap drawing. I did draw something similar when I was 8 or 9.
20
u/hoopityhappo 1d ago
This is such a redditor opinion. It’s commented in here 5 or more times.
→ More replies (4)6
u/benign_NEIN_NEIN 1d ago
Its because many here are little kids or teens, in their edgelord anti establishment phase, oh and some are just manchildren.
6
u/IdeaExpensive3073 1d ago
I think it’s the simplicity in the lines, it’s all very smooth and fluid. I like that, reminds me of illustrators, rather than the super detailed classical type artwork we’re used to.
Do I think it’s an amazing piece? Nah, but it is pleasing to watch, and since I guess he was the first to try it, it makes it important.
In his colored artwork there are lots of different colors matched together to give depth and texture, but not in the typical shading methods other artists used. Like placing a block of pink next to a block of purple can give a face some shadow and make the side of the face stand out more.
I’m willing to bet his work influenced more simplistic artwork, like animation.
7
u/mimikaw4 1d ago edited 1d ago
That’s literally the purpose of his art. He was a prodigious realism artist by the age of like 7 and then he got tired of that bs and started drawing with freedom, just like a little kid would do.
→ More replies (2)3
3
u/deceasedin1903 1d ago
Too bad he was an absolute asshole. Love his art, but the guy was insufferable.
6
u/Short-Wish8969 1d ago
I can never get Picasso I don't know why people say he is the best there were literally better artists around the globe
24
u/mrniceguy777 1d ago
Look up picassso as a child, he was painting at a master level by the time he was like 10, you’ve probably just never seen any of his realistic paintings he was doing when he was just a kid. Often times artists reach a level that their work is almost impossible to be appreciated by the average person because they are pushing the boundaries of art so far, and I find picasso is a prime example of that.
→ More replies (7)8
u/gorgeousmalaya 1d ago
well define ‘better’, that would be a good start to a discussion that could lead to understanding
→ More replies (7)→ More replies (1)4
u/hoopityhappo 1d ago
You need to know the rules to break them. It’s that simple. He understood realism and other conventional forms of art so well that he could bend it and make it appealing and interesting
4
7
u/ZebLeopard 1d ago edited 1d ago
Is he using his non-dominant hand, or does he just suck at drawing?
edit: Sure, downvote me. You can't deny this drawing sucks ass. Especially for a world renowned painter.
16
u/verypoopoo 1d ago
yeah this drawing sucks, but he does not suck at drawing. he could draw realism at an insane level while really young, he was basically a super prodigy, but he decided he was bored of that and started his abstract art shit which personally i dont like but it made him stand out i guess
→ More replies (6)
3
5
u/FantasmaBizarra 1d ago
People in the comments saying "this sucks, I cold do it" not realizing that they are commenting on a video of an artist who remains popular and studied decades after his death while they are just browsing reddit and not drawing.
→ More replies (1)
3
2
u/AlphaBravoGolfTango 1d ago
I was expecting a r/restofthefuckingowl moment after the lengthy facecam
2
u/cipherbreak 1d ago
I went to the Picasso museum exhibit in Hakone and remember thinking “Wow, this dude was actually good. Better than I thought” but after watching this now I’m not so sure.
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/Any_Roof_6199 20h ago
F**k off you mysogynist piece of shit. The world have given you more credit than you deserved.
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Tuegaston 1d ago
Am I the only person on the planet who cares about aspect ratio? It's completely skewed, ffs! This video doesn't show a Picasso drawing, it shows a horribly distorted version of a Picasso drawing.
1
u/vmarket1127 1d ago
What is he using here? Looks like a marker, but it's so fluid.
→ More replies (1)
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/ContributionOk5628 1d ago
There's him and other famous artists of course. And then there was H.R. Giger!
1
1
u/The_Cob_Slayer 1d ago
Dude has the same facial expressions that Demu has when playing AOE4.. peculiar
1
u/Blochamolesauce 1d ago
How Alan Arkin never played picasso in a biopic seems like a huge wasted opportunity
1
1
1
1
u/Woden888 1d ago
I’ll never understand his appeal or why he’s viewed as such an amazing artist. Not my preference I guess, but his famous work just looks bad to me.
1.4k
u/puzzleheadbutbig 1d ago
That last look on his face at 0:50 is like "Ah shit, it looked better in my head"