Dear Kobi, That was a very windy discussion on the merits of Art, especially the Picasso still life [in reference to the discussion of Le Guéridon (The Pedestal Table) in Chapter 3, “The Customer is Always ________ (Fill in the blank)” and why Doron didn’t get off to it]. There are two schools of thought in art appreciation and analysis. One states that art is created and the creator is the real artist and innovator. We merely analyze and appreciate it to the best of our abilities. The more we know, the greater is our experience; the more brilliant we are, the more original we are, or the greater our intellectual or aesthetic ability is, then the more we appreciate

The appeal of animal portraiture is probably deeply linked to that of human portraiture. Yet the reasons underlying the appeal of both types of portraiture have received scant attention. The psychological appeal of human portraiture is poorly understood, and has also rarely been tackled by museum exhibits or art history. To understand the emotional appeal of animals in art, we probably ought to know what it is about human portraiture that we find so attractive, even spellbinding? Are we not accosted by 5, 50 or even 500 faces each day of our lives? Why does it matter on a given day if we see several more faces represented on canvas? It would seem that we measure the greatness of a

Picasso’s depictions of animals are among the most moving of his works and, for Picasso lovers at least, rank among the most moving animal portraiture in the history of Western art. In addition to his beloved dogs, Picasso kept a wide variety of animals through much of his life. A goat slept outside his bedroom. He boarded doves and famously nursed an injured owl back to health. He painted cats, primates, and all sorts of birds. He deeply identified with the circus since a young age, and painted its entire complement of animals repeatedly. He was an avid bullfight spectator, and that spectacle featured prominently in his work as well. Picasso’s father was also an artist, whose major artistic focus