Picasso: "Challenging the Past"

Hi Jennifer & friends: I decided to write two posts in a row because of all the fabulous things going on in London right now. There is nothing quite like London in the spring. (Well maybe Paris) The show "Picasso: Challenging The Past " is at the National Gallery of Art and will go through June 7 and 750,000 people have seen the show. I waited in line almost two hours to get in and its stunning.

I had my boyfriend with me and we made a day out of this and we had a wonderful time. People dressed up for the occasion and the conversations waiting in line with the people we met made the time go by quickly.

Once inside, the self portrait paintings of Picasso are the first things you see as I am told this was a trade mark style of his arrogance. I discovered that you don't really see Picasso as much as you witness him. Picasso was a powerful personality with immense talent which at times it seemed as though he would slap you across the face and say 'how dare you look at my work.' The gallery decide to hang his paintings in their own area because so many of Picasso's paintings mock and torment the masters of the past. One fantastic painting after another telling a personal story of the times. I will never forget it.

Late in his life Picasso said; "When I was a child I could paint like Raphael, but it took me my entire adult life to learn how to paint like a child." Wow! He was still mocking them.

highly recommend seeing this exhibition.

Clare London, England