Download or read book A Brief History of the Artist from God to Picasso written by Paul Barolsky and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-08-26 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Brief History of the Artist from God to Picasso, Paul Barolsky explores the ways in which fiction shapes history and history informs fiction. It is a playful book about artistic obsession, about art history as both tragedy and farce, and about the heroic and the mock-heroic. The book demonstrates that the modern idea of the artist has deep roots in the image of the epic poet, from Homer to Ovid to Dante. Barolsky’s major claim is that the history of the artist is inseparable from historical fiction about the artist and that fiction is essential to the reality of the artist’s imagination.