Picasso's Goddesses and Doormats

Now, I was never much interested in Picasso, perhaps because I knew little about him much less his work, other than the fact that he is really famous for his paintings that sometimes confuse the heck out of people. However, that's changed when I found out more about the prolific artist's life due to my job. Picasso's love life -- consisting of two marriages and many, many affairs -- intrigued me the most. He certainly did not have trouble getting women due to his fame and wealth from his success as an artist. The  artist once said that, for him, only two kinds of women existed: "goddesses" and "doormats." Unfortunately for most of his women, they started off as objects of his obsession only to find themselves downgraded to the undesirable doormat status when passion fizzled. Take a look at his portrayal of his first wife Olga Khokhlova and one can see that she starts off as being a gentle soul but becomes a monster with vagina dentata in later paintings.


The Picasso Museum in Paris is undergoing renovations, allowing 62 art works of Picasso from its collection, which includes sculptures, to travel all the way here to Taipei for an exhibition at the National Museum of History. I had the chance to see three paintings, "Dora Maar" (above), "The Embrace" (below) and "Paul as Pierrot" fresh out of their sturdy containers a little over a week ago.  

back into the box...