While my daughter the Bride was exploring Seattle, and my son the Rocker was debuting his band’s sophomore album in Brooklyn, Bob and I decided not to sit around on our laurels, so we traveled to Richmond to see Picasso at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA). I knew I wasn’t a Northerner anymore because while strolling through this crowded museum space, people would apologize for either bumping into me, or crossing in front of me. I almost clicked my heels over the sheer civility of it all!
Born in Spain in 1881, Pablo Picasso made Paris his home at the age of 22. The sheer volume of this exhibit in Richmond is extraordinary, but only a small example of the 50,000 works he produced over his lifetime – all done in different mediums. As the museum’s literature so succinctly put it: “Picasso … remained open to all kinds of stimulation and restlessly moved on to new forms (and women I might add) before depleting any one style of expression.” He and his room mate, Braques, developed a different way of interpreting their world, they called it Cubism. 
By the age of 12 Picasso was a better painter than his own father, and could paint in the representational style of Dutch masters. But as he said when he painted his son in a jester’s costume, his paintings had to leave space, things unfinished, because that was his art. Soon afterward, he was deconstructing and fracturing the human form in ways almost unrecognizable. His paintings and sculpture not only represent his own inner world, they reflect the tumultuous times, the wars, and a movement – the “modern” aesthetic that sustained him.
Touring the exhibit was a most holy ritual. Seeing up close and personal his style of plastering paint on canvas and then hatching it off, the sequential photos of him preparing his masterpiece of war, Guernica, and the brilliant portraits of his wives and mistresses, left me breathless. I came away realizing genius and madness are closer than we think. His advice while living in the South of France after WWII was to, “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”
Waiting in Line
We always encouraged our children to follow their passion, which explains the scientist and the artist traveling around the country. Music coursed through our son’s veins, he could never deny that muse. And I wish him and the Parlor Mob an amazingly successful second album and world-wide tour! Here is a picture of the Rocker a couple of years ago in Paris. I would love to see how Picasso would paint those long red legs!
Photography was prohibited inside VMFA (included is a shot standing in the line). But here is a website that lets you create an artistic portrait, not in Picasso’s style unfortunately, with a photo. I wish you a life as long and vitally creative as Pablo, and fun playing with computer imagery. This is what becomes of my face, when treated to a Modigliani interpretation! What makes me think he may have had astigmatism?
MountainMornings 
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