whose moral loneliness was, at the time, quite horrifying, for none of his painter friends had followed him. Everyone found that picture crazy or monstrous.
- Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, art dealer

Picasso, after painting one of the most important paintings of the century, retreated from it. Picasso, a man legendary for his self-confidence and indifference to criticism and rejection, hid away one of the greatest paintings of history because other people found it repulsive. At first. Eventually, it expanded our conception of art. It expanded our imagination. Eventually, it prevailed. There's an important lesson there. You can't let the voices take over. You have to let it rip and roar. It is difficult. The possibility of failure is always staring you in the face. Artists who stick it out to the bitter end enlarge our vision of life, of courage, of potential.

Years after painting it, Picasso offered these thoughts:

A work of art must not be something that leaves a man unmoved, something he passes by with a casual glance… It has to make him react, feel strongly, start creating too, if only in his imagination... He must be jerked out of his torpor. You have to wake people up. To revolutionize their way of identifying things, You've got to create images they won't accept.

An artist's insecurities are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they can inhibit work, discourage work. On the other, they can spur an artist into efforts of constant improvement, constant experimentation.