rms, and an artist's job was to give life to that form. Until this goal is accomplished, the Cubist painter has not fully realized his purpose.After his initial Cubist period, Picasso moved through various other stages. He experimented with sculpture and still lifes, and by his death at the age of ninety-two, could be considered "the most famous and talked about painter in recent history." (Barnes). After progressing past Cubism, Picasso frequently came back to this style of painting because, as stated by Souchre, Picasso felt liberated and powerful when painting this way and believed Cubism to be the best way to speak out against the scandalous outer world. As Picasso pointed out Cubism "is the attitude of aggression" that could give him complete control over himself, his emotions, and his surroundings.This logically leads to a brief discussion of what Picasso felt was art and what he considered the duty of the artist to be. In a brief conversation with one of his biographers, Picasso commented that he saw art as something not to be understood or interpreted.Everyone wants to understand art.... In the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works out of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things, things which please us in the world, though we can't explain them (Barnes).Picasso painted for himself, as a release from the pressures of his society and as a way to express his thoughts and problems in tangible form. For this reason, the events happening around the time of any Picasso work must be understood before the true meaning of any resulting art can be understood.In the time period directly before the painting of Bull's Skull, Fruit, Pitcher, many hardships befell Picasso. As William Rubin explains, during the winter of 1938, Picasso was bedridden with a severe attack of sc...
