Waldemar Januszczak

The National Gallery’s exciting new show, Picasso: Challenging the Past, seems, on the face of it, to be about the artist’s relationship with the old masters — the ones he liked and the lessons he learnt from them. More obviously than any of the big hitters of modern art, Picasso was obsessed with his artistic past. He plundered the work of his predecessors: took their subjects, their methods, their viewpoints. And because he was such a compelling and thunderous creator, this battle with his own history makes for fascinating viewing.
However, Picasso versus the past is merely what occurs on the surface of this event. Beneath the surface, something more telling even than Picasso’s enormous debt to his ancestors is being probed. I am thinking here of one of the most pertinent subjects any exhibition can address: the make-up of creativity itself. What is it to create? How is the process validated and invalidated? When is it complete? All such questions are raised and answered by this lively journey