Sir, - For someone who shows such disdain for Picasso's decision to remain in Nazi-occupied France, Kevin Myers's sweeping dismissal of modern art as "rubbish" (An Irishman's Diary, November 14th) is remarkably similar to Hitler's own view that it was degenerate and should be suppressed. The Fuhrer too preferred art to confine itself to "beautiful" representations of haywains, madonnas, warships and naked girls rather than deal with the darker, more mangled modern reality of which he was the most infernal example.
Although Picasso was self-aware enough to recognise that part of his role was as a "public clown" whose market value was in the hands of "the rich, and professional idlers", it is absurd to condemn him as a "hoaxster", a common charge from those with little real interest in painting. After all, an image painted on canvas can never in itself be a hoax - it is what it is, and the viewer can like or dislike it. Only when huge sums of money are slapped on works of art do the suspicions of viewers get aroused and questions of trickery become an issue - but this is not the fault of the artist.
In fact, Picasso didn't pandor to the market - nor to the Nazis - and was continually experimenting with new styles and forms with a restlessness that was his unique quality. Another famous remark of his shows that his pictures, far from being "silly assemblies", were in fact far more in touch with reality than Kevin Myers's narrow attempts at art criticism. Looking at the dismembered limbs and screaming features depicted in "Guernica", a Gestapo officer asked Picasso in dismay: "Did you do this?" "No," came the reply, "You did". - Yours, etc., Giles Newington,
Leeson Park,
Dublin 6.