And They Call This Stuff Art?

HELLO FOLKS — Art critics puzzle me. Today there is a man being hailed as the world's greatest artist. His name is Pablo Picasso. What makes him great I don't know. I have seen quite a few of his paintings and drawings and as far as I can see they are no better than those of an ordinary high school senior who has had a year of two of art. In fact I have seen adolescents come home from school with pictures sketched in a hurry that would run most of Picasso's a good race.

Picasso is probably a great artist, but what puzzles me is why more of his good works are not published. Are they going to wait until after his death before they release them? And if they have never been released how does anybody know that he is such a great artist? After all, nobody can draw pictures of nude people with bodies mis-shapen and heads set off at grotesque angles;  or make a few streaks with a brush and sign his name to it (if he dares).

Maybe what it takes is a great publicity agent and the right connections, and shouldn't the poor ones be subtracted from the total.

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As it now... in the young... 16 to 21...

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My idea... that it would... mer. The a.... these youths should for the most part be in school the rest of the time. If a permanent force is needed...

On the other hand we have such artists as Arnold Frieberg who is no doubt the world's greatest living painter of religious pictures. Any question as to that should quickly be dispelled by a good look at one of his latest productions, "Peace Be Still". Mr. Frieberg is a prolific artist and helped Cecil DeMille with "The Ten Commandments".

He is still a young man and will yet go down in history as the greatest artist of the twentieth century. I realize that is making quite a statement what with all the great artists such as Norman Rockwell, Edward Grigware and others.

In all fairness to Picasso, I understand that in his early days he did some very good painting and that is where he started on the road to fame. I believe that they call his paintings of recent years cube painting.

—o—

IN TRAVELING through several states on our vacation this fall I was impressed with a number of things concerning roads. One of the finest roads was one that had just been built. It was one of the new interstate highways. We traveled it in the rain at night. It had post reflectors all the way along the edge. The edges of the lanes were marked with luminous white paint and despite the fact that it was raining and really bad driving conditions we knew all the turns in the road for about one - half mile ahead, this due to the post markers. It was a safe and remarkable road to travel.

One of the most adverse sights was when we returned to Minnesota and there above each speed sign was the additional sign "ABSOLUTE."

Just what do we mean when we say 30 miles an hour? Do we mean 40 or 50? Or if we say 60 do we mean 70 or 80? Maybe I just don't know what the highway authorities are getting at and I wonder if the tourists and visitors from other states do and what they think of it.

Why don't we just call the speeds and mean it?