Many Scots. agree with me that arguably the greatest artist who ever lived was Pablo Picasso. Among many other things he was an inveterate painter of women, hundreds of them, possibly thousands of them, short; tall; fat; thin and in almost every conceivable stage of dress and undress you could imagine. He could paint a beautiful woman and make it look like an expensive photograph, he could then paint the same woman and portray her with her nose, ears, mouth and eyes all jumbled around in different positions but you knew at a glance that it was the same beautiful woman, in fact Pablo was a right smart arse of a painter who didn't give much of a f**k about what people thought or indeed or even particularly; artistic convention. He divided opinion in his day to a fearsome degree and to a lesser extent still does today. My younger brother Shug once stood looking at a Picasso in the Glasgow Art Galleries, he stood back, he leant forward, looked from this side and that, I believe he actually stroked his chin meaningfully before offering his judgement which was "naw ah don't see it at aw, it's f****n s***e, oor Francis (younger again and a painter) could dae better" I am no expert and on this great debate Shug and me disagree ,but I consider him to be one of the most fascinating and gifted men (Pablo not Shug) who ever lived and so do a lot of other people, so, why am I talking about him in a Scottish context?
The Scottish Gallery of Modern Art is running an exhibition of the great man's work backed by a suitably expensive and dynamic campaign to make sure everyone knows about it "gaun yersell that Gallery" I hear you shout. What could go wrong with that, what indeed? Well as you disembark at Edinburgh Airport your walk through the terminal building takes you past some of the aforementioned attempts to persuade you to take in the Picasso exhibition. One of which is the stunning painting called'nude woman in a red armchair. Some people however were outraged and complained; rumour has it that some particularly diligent God botherers said that the image reeked of debauchery, the cowardly airport authorities to Scotland's undying shame covered it up. It's now back on display after protestors mad a fuss about the move but, that's not the point. Needless to say the airport is not short of images of semi naked women (and men) advertising all kinds of junk with impunity. Why a Picasso nude? I hear you plead, I wish I knew. One of my daughters once asked me what women's breasts were for and I thought about it wondering what the catch was and I eventually said babies and milk, she replied no they are not they are for selling bloody cars.
Nude Woman in a Red Armchair was covered up at the airport.
Picasso painted women as opposed to the impossible images which bombard us today of them, life is hard enough because of the lack of equality for females and it is made well nigh impossible by the parasites who blackmail them into having to look like catwalk models.
If the complainers were Scottish they should have been told to eff off and if they were from abroad they should have been politely advised that the flight they came in on was refuelling and they were welcome to reboard and go right back home. Scotland needs an enema.
2 comments:
Best thing you've ever written!
Thank you.
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