'I have a feeling,' Picasso said as he got older, 'that Delacroix, Giotto, Tintoretto, El Greco and the rest, as well as all the modern painters, the good and the bad, the abstract and the non-abstract, are all standing behind me watching me at work.' He also said that while he had a horror of copying himself he was happy to copy others: 'Shown a portfolio of old drawings, for instance, I have no qualms about taking anything I want from them.' The pictures in the exhibition at the National Gallery (until 7 June), Picasso: Challenging the Past, make points about his use of other people's art, but he did that so regularly that they also give an overview of his whole life's work.

LRB 26 March 2009 | PDF Download