If you want a valuable lesson in art, get ye down to the Littman Gallery on Portland State University's campus. Until March 26 they are displaying preparatory sketches that Picasso did for his famous Guernica painting.
These are the fascinating shows to see because they reveal how artists use art to think. You can witness his ideas take shape as he plays around with variations on several themes within the painting. You can also see alternate possibilities for how he chose to organize the painting into a unified whole. And, invaluable to the novice, you can witness the fact that even though it is not 'realistic.' the artist meant it to be that way. It was a lesson I learned while in college- also seeing a similar show of Picasso's work. I noticed a drawing, very similar to this one:
The thing I noticed the most were the erased lines- the ghosts of paths not taken. In particular, the paths that were more 'realistic.' You see, when I looked at a strange looking abstract painting and some critic or teacher said the artist meant it to look that way, I thought they were full of crap. Until I noticed Picasso- taking a picture that was 'right', erasing it and making it abstract- or even if his original version was abstract- there was still the conscious choice to make it different. It was an eye opening experience. Unfortunately the gallery is closed on weekends but they stay open until 7pm on Thursday evenings. I'd be happy to join anyone who wanted to go see it (but you'd probably have to bribe my wife to give me up for an evening away from the kids.)
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