‘PICASSO’S DEMOISELLES D’AVIGNON didn’t really go down with the Titanic did it?’
Trailing a bait for unwary highbrows, Picasso in the latest film version of the Titanic retains at least some measure of his power to shock. The revitalisation of that power, I believe, is due to the latest volume of Jonathan Richardson’s biography of Picasso which appeared about a year before the film and is, I maintain, a major source of its ideas and attitudes.
In this extended review I treat first of the art theme in the film, then of the biography and finally of counter-tendencies to both of them in past and present criticism of Picasso.
This article was published in the The Cambridge Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 3 (1999). Click below to view the article in PDF format.
Tags: film Picasso
