The image of artistic genius is above all free. Picasso’s work satisfyingly reflects the kineticism of the man who made it. A viewer gets a buzz just looking at it. The work is unnerving, or rather extra-nerving: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, with its hot pink bodies and its grimly animal faces and its hostile-feeling distortions, makes us jumpy and energized; we mimic, internally, the state of the artist. Picasso’s friend the poet André Salmon wrote that Les Demoiselles “unleashed universal anger” when it was first unveiled, and I have to admit I still feel a little pissy when I look at it. A
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