Museu Picasso

My favorite site in Barcelona was the Museu Picasso. The Picasso family donated just about every piece of work that Picasso created throughout his childhood. His father was a painter and he realized very early that young Pablo had a great talent. So just about everything Picasso created was saved at the family estate and subsequently donated to the Museum in Barcelona.

I was almost able to snap off a pic of one of his earliest known doodles in a sketch book that was protected behind glass. The security guard almost tackled me when she saw me take my camera out. Never even got my finger on the trigger.

The collection was presented as a journey through Picasso's life. His earliest sketches, his first large pieces that he submitted in contests in his teens, his first forays into Modernisme, his fascination with color that led to his Blue Period and Rose Period, his creation of Cubism, and finally, a collection of work that he put together near the end of his life that was an analyzation of Velazquez' "Las Meninas" (The Maids of Honour), pictured at top. It was an absolutely astounding collection of work. Picasso created 58 oil paintings based on Velazquez' original. (My favorite interpretations are shown above.)

Picasso's interpretations of Las Meninas are dark and disturbing, yet funny and ethereal and illuminating. He strikes me as nothing less than an absolute mad man with an amazing gift of being able to convey his madness with paint and brush. And this ability somehow seemed to keep him grounded and even humble. He conveyed madness and sadness and fear and tranquility all while seeming to be a simple and humble human being. His paintings actually scared the $hit out of me, and at the same time, make me feel at peace because they show me that my wildest nightmares and delusions and hallucinations are nothing but bright colors and bold lines drawn out by my mind's eye. And when illustrated properly, as Picasso was able to do, my nightmares are nothing more than fantastic works of art that my mind creates for me every moment that I am alive and awake and day-dreaming, or sleeping and dreaming.