This has been great!   I've always considered that it was necessary to become a craftsman before perhaps developing into an artist, if talent allowed.   It seems to me necessary to learn a vocabulary capable of expressing an idea adequately, or putting intense feelings into paint, words or music. For me, Art somehow crystallises unique moments of the human experience, recording or extending our understanding of the things that people feel, or have felt, to be important.

This of course is not something that has to be explained to folk musicians as this thread has so clearly and hearteningly demonstrated. I simply do not understand how it is possible to have 'artists' who can't draw, and who have to use technicians to express their ideas.   How seriously do we take 'musicians' who can't play an instrument?   

I recently visited the Picasso museum in Paris and was surprised at the breadth of the work on display in a whole mixture of different media and styles. I found it quite remarkable of how the very essence of one thing could be captured by manipulating quite different objects, or presenting different views of them. Even my dentist has a copy of 'Guernica' hanging in a corridor. On my last visit I found myself struck by how forcibly recent similar events have revived the potency of Picasso's images.

But $93 million?   Do we really believe this was paid by an admirer of Picasso's work, or was it someone looking for a long term financial investment?

I feel it's a sad day when we start to measure the 'worth' of Art in terms of the price it reaches in an auction room. Isn't there a quote about "knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing"?    I find it particularly apt in this case.

Given the events that prompted 'Guernica' I can't help but wonder what Picasso would have thought if this painting were to be sold for a similar sum.   It occurs to me he might well have preferred to see the canvas slashed into a thousand tiny irreparable pieces.

Bill