Word: huffington
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Such an approach to Picasso renders the book simplistic and biased. Huffington bases a large part of the last sections of the book on her interviews with Francoise Gilot, the woman who left Picasso after bearing him two children. And Huffington is so unabashedly admiring of Gilot that the reader wonders if a biography of her wouldn't have been a more appropriate subject for the author...
...that Huffington makes no interesting points about Picasso the man, only that she wants too much to thrust her conclusions upon the reader. To break down a myth is a difficult thing, though, and Huffington is not an effective enough demagogue to accomplish the task...
...problematic aspects of her analysis are compounded by the breathless tone which infects the book. The author seems stunned to realize that Picasso ate, slept, drank, defecated, etc. And when she reveals that Picasso actually did mean and petty things, Huffington writes with a disdain and lack of comprehension that only reveal how deeply she still sees the master artist as a mythic figure...
Picasso's life "was, in a very real sense, the twentieth century's own autobiography," Huffington writes at one point. That statement can be seen as the epigraph for the book's failings, as well as for the man it seeks to portray, because the book embraces wholeheartedly the narrow commonplaces which comprise bestselling books today. If there are no heroes, only 15-minute celebrities, then the People magazine school of biography is appropriate for cultural figures...
...there is still an Art that transcends sexual foibles and the quirks of personality, then Huffington's book--and her approach to the subject--is a failure. Her critique of Picasso the publicity seeker and sadist makes no contribution to our understanding of the artist at work and very little to our understanding of the artist at play...