Thursday, May 4, 2023

Picasso, painting, & humanity

The significance of Picasso attempting to paint a painting without any trace of Picasso in it should give rise thought. Could he do it? Was it possible for him to be so disengaged from the work that its meaning and interpretation would be entirely up to the viewer? Picasso, intriguingly, set out to accomplish this, but I would wager he failed. What he was attempting – a total distinction of the subject from the object – is an impossible goal. Neutrality is not a plausible option, since intentionality is an inescapable dimension of who humans are. After all, being erased, unnoticed, excluded from participation in creativity is not humanly possible. Beings like us are present, involved, and continually leaving traces of ourselves in time. This dynamic truth amounts to the gift of a perspective of the world and humanity that shows us the subject and the object are commissioned to interact with each other.

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