Hanging next to a Picasso

Hanging next to a Picasso

Having an older sibling can feel a lot like being the painting that hangs on the wall next to a Picasso. Yeah, sure, the colors of my painting are beautiful in their expressionistic differences, but it’s not like they started the Cubism movement.

I have an older sister who I am very fond of, and she returns the sentiments—but sometimes if feels like I am cast in her shadow. It feels like my colors are dimmed because hers came first. Sometimes that is the truth and sometimes it is nowhere near the truth, but just like in art she preceded me, so she was noticed first and had a greater impact.

I can vividly remember a moment during my senior year when this very topic was acknowledged and a resolution was even attempted. It was about seven in the evening, steadily warm in the Phoenix air but there was an excited state muddled into it as well. This evening was the night of my high school band’s banquet and as a group we were all swimming in nerves to see who got what awards. I really did not expect to win anything because my sister was usually the one to get awarded for leadership, and to be noticed first because she was the drum major. What I failed to consciously realize was that this year my dear sibling was living in another state and attending another school! I ended up being awarded “outstanding senior girl,” but that was not what mattered, what mattered was what my band director said when he was making his speech. Among various compliments he said “. . . she seems to have been overshadowed by her older sister. . . “That phrase was what struck a chord for me. All those years I knew he favored her, but he noticed me enough to give me the best award of my category. He realized that I was being helpful, and improving the band as soon as she was gone and he even verbally addressed the most daunting obstacle overshadowing me—a shadow. As soon as that Picasso was moved to another gallery, my colors shone brighter.

An identical phenomenon happened in the theater department earlier that year. Instead of being cast in a chorus or a “group,” I was actually cast as a supporting lead. My artistic value was noticed because the premonition that “the older one will be better” had vanished. There was no natural comparison for my school to go by so I ended up playing Titania in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Instead of “Chorus Girl #2.” To my teacher’s surprise, it turns out that I had different strengths and weaknesses then my sister did, just as a Warhol and a Picasso would. The two beautiful works of art cannot be viewed in the same light, or else their important individual meaning will be lost. Next to Warhol’s work is Cubism even important? Additionally, Picasso’s work did start a monumental movement so it got a bigger reaction than Warhol’s.

What Warhol and I have in common though, is colors. Even my schoolwork was more radical than my sibling’s. I used more ideas, and jumped around them--going whatever way my whims directed me. My colors were brighter than hers, and once my teachers stopped expecting Cubism and started to see the hues I applied, they appreciated our differences. It’s not that one of us was wrong or right, we were just radically different thinkers.

One thing that Picasso’s work did do to help out my “artwork” was prepare an audience. When his breakthrough style was introduced it changed how the viewers saw upcoming works of art--and those views would remain changed forever. Before Picasso unveiled his distorted women and various other topics, art was supposed to be realistic, or expressionistic. After the public was taught that this type of art was OK, they accepted things like it into their culture, thus paving the way for fresh ideas and different techniques. In a sense, my sister has done that for me. People know who she is before they know who I am, and they know that she thinks differently than lots of “normal” people. This sets the stage for how I think, which is different from how other people think, but also different from the mental patterns of my sister. All my teachers (and even some family) got us confused, and constantly compared us to each other, but they also knew we were both brilliant. They knew that we both would set a certain definition to our graduating class, but they could tell it would be in a different way.

I am most fond of the memories belonging to my English class from senior year. My sister feels rather unenthusiastic towards those same memories. We had the same teacher at the same school in the same class, but we approached it differently. She went in to get the work done and her speech and writing were very proper, although her work ethic was lacking. I had a concrete work ethic, and frequently went out on limbs to try and reach a tempting idea that I caught a glimpse of. She was not liked very much by our teacher, Mr. Bloom, but I knew that I was. Just like art, some people liked one of us, or the other, or both, or neither but that only matters to a certain extent. Just as in art, if you get accepted by the public and are then allowed to make your own commentary, and reach for your own ideas in your own style, it does not really matter if your style is favored by an individual (except if that individual is you). Usually we let our teachers expect us to be identical, and then surprised them as we took ideas from polar sides of the spectrum, blended them with the highest of contrasting colors and presented our works. After all, even an identical print can have its differences from the original.

My sister is my dearest friend despite all of our differences. She is very talented and very different from me. I know that the two of us have dissenting sets of skills; different pallets to work from, but we both produce beautiful art for people to think about and enjoy. Picasso and Warhol’s differences are colossally vast, but they are coming from different ideas and different minds, just as my sister and me. You wouldn’t hang “Les Demoiselles dAvignon” next to “Four Marilyn’s,” so people shouldn’t view me and my sister like we would be in the same section of an art gallery.