The great artist’s granddaughter Diana Widmaier revealed his secret.
If someone tells you Picasso’s paintings are shit, don’t hurry to argue. The book 100 Secrets of the Art World edited by Thomas Girstand Magnus Resch, cites Pablo Picasso’s granddaughter Diana Widmaier:
“I would like to deliver a family secret…My grandfather used a cotton with excrement produced by his daughter Maya (my mother), then aged three, to make an apple in a Still Life, dated 1938. According to him, excrement from an infant breast-fed by its mother had a unique texture and ochre colour.”
Picasso saw using shit for painting as an innovative approach in art and later returned to his idea several times. In 1933, he told French writer André Breton he wanted to use dried excrement for one of his still lifes. The artist especially liked the inimitable turds he saw in the countryside where children ate cherries with pits. Art historian Jean Clair recounted an anecdote about Picasso: “When someone asked Picasso, ‘Maître, what would you do if you were in prison, with nothing?’, he answered, ‘I would paint with my shit.’”
Such details of the prominent artist’s work may seem disgusting. On the other hand, they emphasise the scale of his creative imagination, his desire to go beyond traditional techniques and seek for innovations.
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