arts: More Picasso please

After seeing the fantastic recent Picasso exhibit I stumbled accross a piece in the Guardian "More sex please, you're artists".

Along with his artistic genius, there is a sensual pleasure to Picasso's art, which has captivated both men and women for the last century.

The article makes it point well:

There isn't enough sex in the arts today. Look back at the 20th century and the whole point of modernism was to liberate the carnal. DH Lawrence, priest of love, competed to shock the last survivors of the Victorian age with James Joyce, who rambled uninhibited to detail Leopold Bloom's underwear fantasies. In art, Picasso introduced the modern age with his brothel scene Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and the surrealists confessed to unspeakable lusts. Even in classical music, there was a sense of orgasmic release, as is recognised by Melinda Gebbie and Alan Moore in their striking comic book Lost Girls, which portrays a riotous erotic encounter at the first night of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

Some women don't like Picasso, the images are highly charged and clearly sexual. Are women on the whole more prudish than men? It is a big generalisation, but possibly true.

The article finishes:

Critics worry about why people would rather see a terrible film than a great play, why they'd rather read a trashy magazine than a book, and why the most god-awful dance music sells more than Steve Reich. It's because of the sex, stupid. If high art wants our attention, it needs to turn us on.