My thoughts about the perception that Van Gogh and Picasso were childish untalented hacks.

Van Gogh’s work is alive. I had always liked some of his stuff but it took seeing in person to see its almost sculptural intensity and the exquisite unforced way colours fed on each other. He wasn’t some “artist” desperate to have their own style. He was a connection between the mundane and the transcendent. That said I don’t like different individual pieces But when he was in a groove, well, he was a paladin of painting.

When I was young I didn’t “get” Picasso. But he was universally hailed as a creative genius. So I read some books about him and realized he really was a genius. Tons of his stuff is still rubbish in my eyes. But the different things he tried to manifest that had never existed in our minds before, the seeking for the absolute kernel of reality, his realizing totally new expressions of humanity’s powers of conception/perception, was unimaginable before he made art about them - he deserves our respect and acknowledgement. Personally Picasso was a POS. He was also a true genius.