The Success and Failure of Picasso

"Traces Picasso's life and work from his childhood to his last drawings, and suggests that Picasso was a 'vertical invader' from Europe's feudal past, a 'primitive' man who burst upon a complex civilization and conquered it. Also analyzes the price Picasso paid for that conquest: in exile, isolation, and loneliness. Shows how the phenomenon of Picasso's success was connected less with his art than with the nostalgic nineteenth-century idea of genius that he evoked in others" --back cover