Famous narcissists – Picasso
Pablo Picasso, who some believe was the greatest artist of the twentieth century, was a monster. In every relationship, with men, women, and his own children, he demanded adoration and in return dominated, manipulated, betrayed, and abused. Any friend who was less than doting and obedient didn’t last.
Beneath an exterior of charm and sociability, he was sarcastic, malicious and cruel, often with no other motive than sport. He was also a vicious gossip and rumourmonger. People were only of interest to him if he could use them and when they served no further purpose, he discarded them. He boasted that no one ever willingly left him and delighted in transforming the ‘goddesses’ he seduced into ‘doormats’ (Huffington 1988).
Picasso led a charmed life, with doting parents, an adoring and supportive family, friends, and patrons. He had good luck, good health, fame, immense wealth, and a string of beautiful women who loved him and devoted themselves to his happiness.
But he was not grateful for his good fortune or appreciative of the host of people who made considerable sacrifices for him. He took what was offered and demanded more and then more still. Not a single person who loved him escaped his cruelty. His response to love was sadistic mind games, duplicity, and rejection. All his life he pleased no one but himself. He had everything a man could dream of but took as much or even more pleasure in satisfying his destructive urges as his creative ones.
Picasso was no more caring as a father than he was as a lover. His oldest son Paulo fascinated him for a while, as a part of, and complement to, himself, but by the time the boy was eight and developing his own individuality, his father lost interest in him. By the time he was sixteen Paulo was a thief and drug dealer. At twenty-seven, with his self-esteem in tatters, he was unemployed and drug and alcohol dependent. Later Paulo became his father’s driver and servant. Picasso never forgave Paulo for being ‘ordinary’ but perhaps also for standing head and shoulders taller than his father. At barely 5 foot 3 inches (160 cm) Picasso hardly fit his own or society’s image of heroic masculinity. How humiliating his lack of height must have been for a man who identified with the half bull, half man image and masculine power of the Minotaur.
Picasso showed little interest in his other three children once they began to remind him of his own mortality. He was so envious of their youth that when his son Claude turned sixteen Picasso told the boy that he made him feel old and so he didn’t want to see Claude again. The boy was so hurt by his father’s rejection that he became suicidal. Picasso refused to see his children or grandchildren from then on and died without leaving a will, well aware of the chaos that would cause.
No one in his life every applied boundaries to Picasso’s ego or challenged his narcissism so that it grew into gargantuan proportions. From early childhood he was rebellious, willful, arrogant, boastful, and a convincing liar. He was the first male heir in his father’s family in his generation and so was showered with attention. He was the pinnacle of his simple and unsophisticated mother’s life. His mother, maternal grandmother, two unmarried aunts, and a maid pampered the young Picasso. His father also indulged him and was encouraging and selflessly devoted. As a child his world and the people in it contrived to provide him with whatever he wanted. His family adored him, mostly uncritically, praised and extolled him as an artistic genius to such an extent that any young boy would come to believe he was superior to mere mortals. The self-image he developed was highly inflated.
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