Picasso and the Painting That Shocked the World

This biography has received good reviews. One NYTimes reviewer was positive but suggested that a reader should consider first reading Sue Roe's "In Montmartre" as it covers much of the same ground but in a more "overview" way that gives you a larger feel for Picasso and the other painters pursuing goals similar to those of Picasso. In addition, Roe's book is written in a smooth, descriptive style. I agree with both of these points. You get a real a feel for the "zeitgeist" of the Paris art world as the modernist art movement developed and evolved thru the work of many artists of the time leading to Picasso's successes. A second reviewer in the NYTimes also praised Unger's work but noted that his florid, purple prose got intrusive and tiring as you progressed thru the book; tho it still was an important work on Picasso. This writing style was a major, off-putting factor for me in reading Unger's book.

I thought I’d be interested in reading a new book about Picasso’s early years but as I read on, instead I found my thoughts drifting towards wondering why I had thought that. There’s just something that doesn’t hold up about the idea of a painting shocking or changing the world. The book left me unconvinced. It does present a pretty detailed account of Picasso’s early years and his journey to cubism, a journey that never really managed to capture my interest… never really gave me a reason to care. For the most part I blame the author. He has a tendency to repeat the same anecdotes (or ones that say essentially say the same thing) multiple times, leaving me with a strange feeling that I kept losing my place in the book and re-reading the same passages. Also, in some not especially interesting areas, there seems to be an excess of detail. Does anybody really care to read page after page on seemingly all the art dealers in Paris in the first decade of the twentieth century and the hard bargains they drove? Time and again, paintings seem to be excessively described, often in almost the same terms. Simply showing more illustrations would probably have been helpful. While the book is only 400 pages long, it ultimately felt closer to an 800 page slog. If some of the repetition and padding had been edited out, I imagine there would be a somewhat recommendable 250-300 page book hidden between the covers.

I have read most of what had been written about Picasso and thought there was little more that could be written or written in a different style to added to what has been done, Wrong! Very interesting read (listen). A very different perspective of the artist, his personal life and the art scene at the time. You will know Picasso better - but probably not like him any better. That book (liking him better) may never be able to be written.

I was really looking forward to reading this, but then found that it is way too long, and contained a lot of day-to-day relationship details that did not interest me. I would have preferred that it had been 50 pages long instead of 450, and that it had focused on the painting and how it shocked the world. Perhaps it would have been better as a magazine article so that it was forced to focus.

An art critic's somewhat overwrought take on the early years of Picasso, his entourage, his loves (especially Fernande) his competitors (such as Matisse) and his paintings. The painting that "shocked the world' is Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.Mr. Unger certainly has a grasp of his important subject, whom he idolizes, but his writing style and opinions struck me as often over the top. For example, "Whether or not anyone else understood its true significance, the one incontrovertible fact was that the painting had changed him, and in changing him it had changed the world." p. 396. Or, embedded in the concluding paragraph, "The hope of those years, the faith in progress--that humankind would move forever onward and upward until we had reached a perfected future--died in the trenches on the western front, the gas chambers of Auschwitz, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the twin towers in lower Manhattan."I recommend John Richardson's books on Picasso to those who might want to read more about this great artist.

WAs a slow read for me. I didn't realize that he drank and sexed his life and father re-started him over and over. He had to die to become famous.

Most of the book is just gossip. I failed to learn interesting ideas about Picasso.

Good book

Good book, good delivery.