Founders Notes

Picasso’s Secret: Prune the Good to Surface the Great

As he approached his thirtieth birthday, Leonardo had established his genius but had remarkably little to show for it publicly. His only known artistic accomplishments were some brilliant but peripheral contributions to two Verrocchio paintings, a couple of devotional Madonnas that were hard to distinguish from others being produced in the workshop

In the twentieth century, then, new experiences for our eyes were the product both of relentless impersonal forces frog-marching humanity forward and of powerful creative individuals striving to wrest control of change in order to realize their personal ways of seeing things. Among this last group none were more successful than Pablo Picasso (1881–

Dans ses notes, Léonard recommande aux jeunes artistes de se promener en ville, de trouver des individus qui leur serviront de modèles et d’immortaliser les plus intéressants dans un carnet : « Tu les noteras en traits rapides, ainsi, sur un petit carnet que tu devras toujours porter sur toi », écrit-il.