Recently, our family visited Frist Art Museum in Nashville Tennessee for a special exhibit featuring
some of Piccasso's most famous pieces, which had been shipped from Europe. The exhibit, Piccasso
Figures, featured pieces from his early years of training to some of the last he ever painted.
Piccasso was trained at a school in Barcelona, Spain, from the age of thirteen. He also took lessons in
Madrid, and made several trips to paris. He finally settled in Paris, and there he was soon became one of
the most influential artists of the 20th Centuries. Famous for his use of simple shapes to represent a
complex image, called cubism. This display focused mainly on his portraits and sculptures. Piccasso saw it
as the artists right to transform a figure from one state of being, to another, often creating chaotic images.
For those who could not read what the statue is supposed to picture, it became very confusing. When
walking by an especially cryptic statue, Baxter exclaimed "Look, it's a dead octopus!"
Near the end of his carreer, Picasso focused primarily on painters themselves, hoping to encourage the
next generation to pursue art as well. And it worked. Despite his unique style, Picasso still manages to
captivate many young artists today.
Along with Picasso's works, Frist Art Museum was also exhibiting paintings from the Westward
expansion of the United States. Many of the artists were hired by the government to capture the
picturesque beauty of the West, hoping to encourage people to move West. The stunning landscapes,
and portraits of the natives, were influential in Americans' ideas of the West at the time. The exhibit
spans over a century of artwork, from the 1820's, to the 1940's.
