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The Young Picasso

"Few artists are as distinctive as Picasso is in his early work. This is true not only in lerms of lhe relationship of his work to his biography, but more acutely still in lhe sheer intensity of his psychological presence. His Self-Portrait with Paleffe , painled in lhe fall of 1906, is lhe culminating statement of a series of self-portraits and self representationsl often disguised, that are so important a pari of his early deve/opmen!, from lhe charcoal study of 1899- 1900, to the early studies for La Vie, to the harlequin in The Family of Saltimbanques. Picasso is rarely absent from his art In his early zeal, Picasso invested many of his pictures with a sentimentality and passion typical of youth that later seems to have embarrassed him. He come to reject lhe paintings of his "Blue period" for example as "nothing but sentiment." The richness of the early work derives in part from the explicit, unabashed subjectivity oft the arlist, his emotions, predilections, and artistic strivings laid bare for ali to see. As a young man, Picasso had lhe courage to take risks-big risks-with his art. The world was full of possibilities. At timestlhe prospects must have been exhilarating and seductive, and other moments frightening. Picasso could only hope that he would recognize the dangers and limitations, the false starts and dead ends, as he explored new forms of expression. This was lhe lonely burden of his art."
Robert Boardingham, The Young Picasso,(New York, Universe, 1997), p.76