Picasso: Soul on Fire

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University. She is the author of several books, including The
Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret
Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

This beautifully illustrated introduction to Picasso and his paintings
leads readers of all ages into different periods of the artist’s life
and to the reasons behind his changing styles. Picasso was a child
prodigy who painted to express his own emotions as well as those of his
subjects.

Picasso is half text and half illustrations. A two-page summary of the
artist’s life and his varied techniques is placed at the end, with
each short paragraph marked with a significant date. Born in Malaga,
Spain, in 1881, the child appeared to be stillborn, but his uncle, a
physician, revived him by blowing smoke in his face. Jacobson comments
dryly that this seems to have been the first and last time when Picasso
lacked energy. The boy’s father, José Ruiz Y Blasco, was a painter,
and from an early age his son was allowed to paint small bits of his
father’s large canvases. By the time Picasso was 11, his father
realized that the boy’s skill was mature; he handed his brushes and
palette to Pablo, and gave up painting.

Paris had long been a centre for painters, and Picasso moved there in
his early 20s. The small colour illustrations of his paintings show his
changing styles, while full-page colour illustrations by Toronto artists
Laura Fernandez and Rick Jacobson are placed opposite the text. Only one
Picasso painting, the famous Guernica, is shown in a two-page spread.
This work, a prized national treasure, now hangs in the Reina Sofia
National Art Centre in Madrid.

The book’s format is inventive, and serves effectively as a gripping
introduction to a long life lived passionately. Readers can come to
understand the dramatic changes in styles that mark Picasso’s works.
Highly recommended.