CARSTEN PETER WARNCKE

This is a collection of paintings by Picasso.

Picasso: el nombre no significa únicamente una persona y una obra. Picasso es una leyenda, casi un mito. Para la opinión pública, encarca desde hace muhco tiempo el genio en el arte moderno. Picasso se cuenta entre los ídolos, es decir, entre esas personalidades que reflejan como en un foco las manifestaciones heterogéneas y a menudo caóticas de la cultura, que parecen representarlas y las hacen inteligibles.

El genio del siglo'Yo quería ser pintor y me convertí enPicasso' declaró Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973) en un resumen de su genial carrera.Picasso devoró todos los estilos, todas las técnicas y todos los materiales en una carrera fascinante. Este libro analiza su obra y vida y se acompaña de fotografías de sus obras de tods sus épocas.

Tenía buenas razones para emitir un juicio de esa naturaleza, ya que en la historia del arte del siglo XX, su nombre se destaca sobre todo los demás. En sus pinturas, dibujos, litografías, cerámica, y esculturas, Picasso era incansablemente inventivo e innovador, exponiendo un alarde estético que lo mantuvo un paso delante de sus contemporáneos.

"I wanted to be a painter, and I became Picasso," declared Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) in an apt survey of a triumphant career. He had good grounds for the confidence palpable in his statement, for in the history of 20th century art, his name stands out over all the others. In Picasso`s paintings, drawings, lithographs, ceramics, and sculptures, he was tirelessly inventive and innovative, exhibiting an aesthetic bravado that kept him one step ahead of his contemporaries. From subject matter to new forms and techniques to new media, Picasso got there first. The Spanish artist's enormous output, from the eight-year-old's beginnings to the late work of a man of ninety-one, is surely one of the most diverse and creatively energetic in the whole history of art, and it is no exaggeration to see him as the genius of the century. Carsten-Peter Warncke's study is a thorough review of Picasso's entire oeuvre, from the early Blue and Rose Periods, through the analytic and synthetic cubism and classicist phase all the way up to the art of the old savage Picasso.

This collection of late 16th and early 17th century love emblems was amassed around 1620 by an unknown lover, doubtless consumed by passion and fiery loins, and given to his or her lover as a token of romance and affection. Composed of mythological, allegorical, and even erotic prints, the emblems (created by printmakers such as Abraham Bloemaert, Pieter I Bruefhel, Agostino Carracci, and Jacob Goltzius) illustrated scenes like The Trades of Cupid, The Seven Deadly Sins, The Seven Virtues, The Muses, The Loves of the Gods, and Five Senses. Publication, or collecting and binding, of love emblems was a novel and popular pastime in the Netherlands in the early 17th century, and the particular album reproduced here is an outstanding example. Meticulously colored and heightened with gold and silver, these prints surely won the heart of their lucky receiver.