I’m reading Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That – Modern Art Explained by Susie Hodge. It is a great book. Small but perfectly formed. It does help to answer, more effectively, a lot of disparaging comments I’ve heard many times especially at modern art exhibitions.

Here is an example by Susie Hodge who explains using Reading by Pablo Picasso 1932, a painting of Marie-Therese Walter in which he is expressing his love for her.

Susie Hodge explains – His intention was “for it to appear innocent and childlike, but he also incorporated several complex and advanced ideas that a child could not have conceived, such as painting from several angles at once and mixing diverse ideas” and I add including in the face, two faces, that of Marie-Therese and Picasso himself kissing her. It is on first glance childlike but on closer inspection stunning.

Picasso also reputedly said “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.

Only four years to go then!