Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Picasso's Trousers
Nonfiction Picture Book
For ages 5 to 7
Random House UK, 2013 ISBN: 978-0099495369
When Picasso was a young man he wanted more than anything to go to Paris to paint. Anyone who wanted to be an artist went to Paris in those days. Picasso’s Father didn’t want his son to go to Paris, but Picasso went anyway.
Once he got to the famous city, Picasso started painting. He became very fond of the color blue and so he decided that all his paintings would be blue, and for a while they were. Then they were pink. Then, and this really shocked people, Picasso painted portraits that showed people from the front and the side at the same time!
You might think that Picasso could not possibly create art that was stranger than all-blue paintings and paintings full of odd looking people who were facing in two directions, but he did. He made sculptures out of pieces of a bike, he managed to convey heaviness in some of his paintings, and he even created drawings in thirty seconds. Picasso was the kind of man who dared to do what he wanted to do, and he is now considered one the greatest painters of all time.
Full of pictures of Picasso’s artwork, this deliciously simple picture book tells Picasso’s story, and at the same time it shows young artists that they can let their imagination run wild when they create art and that the sky is the limit. If Picasso can break the rules why can’t we?
