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Home Art

‘On Picasso’s Grotesque “Seated Woman in Blue Dress” Selling for $45 Million’ by Phillip Whidden

May 20, 2017
in Art, Beauty, Poetry
A A
7
poems 'On Picasso's Grotesque "Seated Woman in Blue Dress" Selling for $45 Million' by Phillip Whidden

(The BBC story here for reference)

If I were burdened with a lover who
Looked crooked like this woman (woman?), I
Would go as twisted as Picasso.  Blue
Lips, though, are what I’d paint to help me shy
Away from her (or him?—can’t really tell),
And if the her/him face looked so like dwarf
Distorted body features, I would yell
(With pretty words), “Please, honey, may I morph
You into something else?  We’ll have to part
If I can’t paint you pretty.  If I bloat
You up as is, then who will buy the art?
Look here.  To show my love, I’ve slit your throat.
____They won’t believe you’re young as thirty one!
____Please may I change your looks, love, just for fun?”

 X
X

Phillip Whidden is a poet published in America, England, Scotland (and elsewhere) in book form, online, and in journals.  He has also had an article on Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum est” published in The New Edinburgh Review. www.phillipwhidden.com

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Comments 7

  1. David Hollywood says:
    9 years ago

    I agree.

    Reply
  2. Hibah Shabkhez says:
    9 years ago

    😀

    Reply
  3. Bob McGinness says:
    9 years ago

    “You’re so analytical. Sometimes you just have to let art…flow…over you.” (from The Big Chill)

    Reply
    • David Hollywood says:
      9 years ago

      Maybe we have!

      Reply
    • Phillip Whidden says:
      9 years ago

      Thanks for making a comment, Bob McGinness. I’m afraid I do not “get it.” Is it an attack on people who analyze art instead of “just” allowing it to flow over them?

      Reply
  4. Joseph S. Salemi says:
    9 years ago

    The painting is an example of garbage art. The fact that it has been sold for 45 million dollars is merely a testament to the corruption of taste in the Western world that has gone on for over a century now. Consider the following: a painting by the talentless Basquiat, an overdosed drug addict whose work doesn’t even rise to the level of lavatory graffiti, has sold for over 100 million dollars just recently.

    Reply
    • G. M. H. Thompson says:
      9 years ago

      The art world’s completely crazy– I like a number of Piccasos, but you’d have to be blind to like this one. 45 million, are you kidding me?! This is why there will be no new rennaisance– the rich of today have no taste. Just look at the Koch Brothers– all that money, and they mostly only spend it on politics. What a terrible waste. And when they do serve as patrons to art, which is far too seldom considering their vast fortunes, they sponsor groteque, utterly unimaginative idols of post-modernity, such as a plaza and two fountains they built in front of the Met in 2014. These cockroaches are no aristocracy, they’re not even peasants.

      Reply

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  1. Roy Eugene Peterson on ‘Life Is Conflictual’: A Poem by Roy E. PetersonOctober 21, 2026

    Yael, such amazing comments. Thank you.

  2. Roy Eugene Peterson on ‘Life Is Conflictual’: A Poem by Roy E. PetersonOctober 21, 2026

    Thank you, Paul, for your kind words.

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    Wow, I really love this one, K.J.! Somehow, autumn seems to evoke the word "again", more than the other seasons…

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    This is a lovely poem which deserves to be printed out, framed, and displayed prominently somewhere people can benefit from…

  5. Roy Eugene Peterson on ‘Again Autumnal’: A Poem by K.J. SalzmannOctober 21, 2026

    Excellent alliteration (especially p, s, and b).

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