The Picasso quote appears to be a piece of _fiction_. Picasso never
said it.
I couldn't believe the quote when I saw it -- it goes against everything
I've read about how Picasso portrayed himself, at least publicly. I dug
around on the web a bit, found the quote repeated a lot without any
context which would indicate whether it was for-real or not ... until I
finally came across this page, which actually gives the source of the quote:
http://www.peacasso.com/Pablo_Confess.asp
The quote is from a book, "Libro Nero", by Giovanni Papini. The site
has this explanatory footnote on the quote:
Please note that a viewer of this web site was kind enough to obtain
confirmation from Antonio D'Amicis of www.giovannipapini.it that Il
Libro Nero is a work of fiction. The interview never really happened.
However, I still like it and think Master P is probably "out there
somewhere" laughing his xxx off at all of this. Just my opinion,
nothing more.
Papini was a novelist and "Libro Nero" appears to be a novel. The quote
is from an interview which takes place in the novel.
R.C.Macaulay wrote:
WEAPON OF INDIFFERENCE
“From the moment that art ceases to be food that feeds the best minds,
the artist can use his talents to perform all the tricks of the
intellectual charlatan. Most people can today no longer expect to
receive consolation and exaltation from art. The
‘refined’, the rich, the professional ‘do-nothings’, the distillers of
quintessence desire only the peculiar; the sensational, the eccentric ,
the scandalous in today’s art. I myself, since the advent of Cubism,
have fed these fellows what they wanted and satisfied these critics with
all the ridiculous ideas that have passed through my mind. The less they
understand them, the more they admire me. Through amusing myself with
all these absurd farces, I became celebrated, I am rich. But when I am
alone, I do not have the effrontery to consider myself an artist at all,
not in the grand old meaning of the word: Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt,
Goya were great painters. I am only a public clown_ a mountebank. I have
understood my time and have exploited the imbecility, the vanity, the
greed of my contemporaries. It is a bitter confession, this confession
of mine, more painful than it may seem. But at least and at last it does
have the merit of being honest.”
Pablo Picasso, 1952
