🖼️Pablo Picasso (Today I Learned #230)

Mbaacha

Today I learned the benefits of reinterpreting other people’s style. I was watching this video on auction houses selling paintings that honestly look like chicken scratch for millions of dollars and I found out that a painting that Picasso made in one day sold for $106 million dollars. At first I wouldn’t let myself believe this. It’s still hard to believe this because it makes me question what am I doing in college? If a guy can make a painting in a day and years later even after that guy passes away that very same painting he made sells for $106 million dollars then why am I not investing my time into doing something like that? I was befuddled when I learn this and I even stopped what I was doing and went to take a walk. After a few little while I realized that the value of my college education transcends monetary value. I still wanted to learn more about Picasso so I watched a documentary on him over the span of a couple days and learned that he would habitually reinterpret the styles of other artist's paintings. I learned from this documentary and a bit extra research that Picasso would go to The Louvre repetitiously to stare at an artwork that he wanted to reinterpret. After some time he would do his on rendition of the style. This technique of adopting someone else’s idea and embodying it in their own work echos a similar programming philosophy. From what I learned so far a good practice in programming software is to build on the back of someone before you's work. This enables one to be more efficient because instead of starting from scratch one can focus on improving. Why reinvent the wheel? It’s alway easier to improve someone else's idea. I first rejected this way of going about one’s work because it seemed to diminish creativity. There is something about creating something from scratch that just seems cooler. But after a bit I realized that almost everything is built from other things. Nothing just comes out of nowhere. One idea leads to the next idea. Many things like the iPhone, Uber, and even Ice Cream Sandwiches are composites of different ideas. Learning this makes me want to work with others more, it opens my eyes to the fact that the world is full of good ideas to use. One of the best things about the concept of reinterpreting other people’s ideas is that for the most part information is free so it’s almost like a free for all on ideas. So the #1 thing I learned from that documentary on Picasso is to increase my tendency of reinterpreting other people’s ideas. If I see somebody doing something in a way that I feel is pretty dope than I should do my own rendition based upon their work, if Picasso is humble enough to do that so can I. Ending Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N83L29yGKI