Whether one can separate art from the artist is a debate that will run for ever, but with Pablo Picasso there is little point in having it. The man himself said his work told you everything about him – and the work is mercurial, confrontational, twisted and violent. Picasso: The Beauty and the Beast, a three-part documentary marking 50 years since his death, confirms that the tumult on the canvas mirrored the painter’s temperament.
The tale begins with Picasso’s arrival in Barcelona at 14. He formed a fraternity of wannabe artists who were interested in painting, women and painting women. Sketching nudes was fun, but interactions with unmarried women were forbidden on religious grounds, so Picasso acquainted himself with the refuge that would inform his work for decades to come: the brothel. We hear the story of him being asked, later in life, how old he was when he lost his virginity. He responded by holding his arm out at chest height, as if to say: I was yea high.
