Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso was one of the greatest artists of the 20lh century. He experimented in many different styles and changed the world of art during his time.

Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain in 1881. His father was a drawing teacher. At 10 Pablo became his father's pupil and at the age of 13 he held his first exhibition. His family moved to Barcelona in 1895 where Pablo joined an art academy. In his early period the young artist painted life as he saw it around him — in cafes and on the streets. Then they moved to Paris, the centre of art and literature.

In 1901 a close friend of Picasso shot himself. This had a great influence on Pablo. He was very sad and began painting his pictures in grey and blue tones instead of bright, vivid colours. This part of his career is called his Blue Period (1901-1904).

Later on, he changed his painting style and started using more earth colours — rose, pink or brown. He liked to paint pictures of circus life with dancers and acrobats. This Rose Period lasted until 1907.

When Picasso started working with his friend and fellow painter Georges Braque in Paris they started experimenting with a new style that was called cubism. Picasso and Braque didn't want to show nature as it really was. They thought that all objects in nature had geometric forms. In cubism, objects were cut into many flat shapes, which looked like a puzzle. All the sides of a person's face, for example, were shown at once, maybe even with three eyes instead of two.

In 1936 Civil War broke out in Spain. During this period he painted his masterpiece Guernica. It shows the terrified people of the ancient Spanish town which was bombed during the Civil War. Picasso was shocked by this inhuman act and in his painting he shows people running in the streets and screaming with their mouths wide open. To display his sadness and anger he used only black and white as well as shades of grey.

EXPORTING AMERICAN CULTURE

American popular culture is dominant in the world – it is a fact. You man easily find a person who has never heard about Shakespeare but you will have difficulty finding a person who’s not heard about Batman or Spider Man. American pop-culture is so powerful, intrusive and attractive! Around the world people hum American tunes, line up for American films and enjoy American TV shows. The latest Hollywood action flick make them pack the movie-theatres to the capacity in France, American rock bands or rap singers bring them to their feet in Japan and kids from England to South Africa love characters from the Disney TV series and films.

The statistics make it clear: 8 out of 10 films currently playing in the world are from the USA, 7 out of 10 songs on the playlist of your local FM station are American.

Having produced 2 highest grossing films in history – The Titanic and Avatar – Hollywood has much to be proud of. Whose childhood would have been complete without Star Wars or Star Trek? And we would have never learned that being scared could be so pleasing if there had not been films like Halloween or Friday the 13^th.

One of the latest phenomenon America produced is the adult – oriented animated series that enjoy high ratings around the globe. The shows like South Park, Family Guy, Futurama or American Dad (to say nothing about The Simpsons – America’s longest and most successful animated comedy) became very famous for their irreverent humour often bordering on profanity and ability to handle serious issues like the same sex marriages or the Civil War in Afghanistan in a bizarre way.

At the same time American pop-culture has constantly been criticized for what some critics call “spreading the distorted image of reality”. There are stories about American films and TV series being banned in countries like China or Egypt for “sending the wrong message to the audience”.

American popular culture spreads a very clear idea of how the world is supposed to work: there is trouble but it will be OK in the end. There is action but there is a solution leading to calm. The people who believe in goodness and act honestly will triumph.

In the Disney produced TV series no one is lonely, no one is neglected, that is the way life should be.

But it is not.

The world view America produces has little in common with observable reality. The American shows tend to be overoptimistic in their tone and that is the principal accusation America has to face.