Three Musicians (1921). Version residing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

When I was a kid, I had a small art book with a picture of Picasso’s Three Musicians on the cover. The image was about the size you see on your computer screen. Maybe smaller.

When I unexpectedly came face to face with the real thing in a museum, I was stunned by its size and true colors. To read that the painting is so many tens of inches by so many hundreds of centimeters, doesn’t explain it. Look at your wall. It’s about that big.

Four books, four Olgas

Since I can seemingly never have enough books about Picasso, I can show you an example of how hard it is to figure out what artwork looks like, without actually standing in front of it.

This is a painting of Picasso’s wife, Olga. Just looking at my version (from four different books) I think I’ve made my point. You can’t tell what art looks like from books, or on the Internet.

Knowing the artist had the color ochre in his palette, you might decide one of the middle slices are right. But the blues are different. Knowing the artist was imitating the smooth-skinned, idealized beauties painted by Ingres, you might choose another.

Olga Picasso poses for her portrait

Working from this photograph, Picasso embraced technology. Early film cameras were becoming the must-have gadgets of the day.

SFMOMA Tickets

At the beginning of the third millennium CE, people still disengage from the network to do things in so-called real time. Colorfully printed strips of paper such as these afford entry to places of recreation and amusement.

Picasso: Seated Woman Poster

Now through the end of the month you have time to see Picasso and American Art, a San Francisco exhibit showing Picasso’s influence on contemporaneous American artists. On view are a range of works from Picasso to Pollack.

Allow me to interpret this painting, since the subject may not be obvious. In it, the artist tenderly embraces a seated model. That’s Picasso’s head in profile, on the right. Get it? No?

Cubist Study

I was able to capture one photo, before security dutifully advised me that taking pictures was not allowed! I believe this study was done in 1906-1907, around the time of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. The influence of Cézanne is apparent. Picasso had transitioned to cubism, and it was works such as these that introduced him into American consciousness.

Escher exhibit at San Jose Museum of Art

The recent Escher exhibit in Silicon Valley afforded a rare opportunity to see not only famous prints, but also sketches and intermediate pressings that revealed how the Dutch master created his illusions. Escher’s multi-dimensional Relativity was on display.

Study for Relativity

This sketch was not one of those on view, it is from a rare book. (The museum confiscated my camera at the door.)

There are three vanishing points and three different ground planes in this environment. The floor of one world is a wall or ceiling in another, a door or window becomes a trap-door.

Although it looks strange, people who enjoy 3D computer modeling can re-create it. In fact, somebody made one out of Lego.