Picasso’s Blue Period–or basically anything he did before Cubism–has always struck me as more powerful than anything he did later, which seems mostly theoretical playing. Not that I think somebody as vast as Picasso could stay in one phase forever (I’ve asked before what a genius is supposed to do when they’re almost too good.) Works like Guernica and his obsession with minotaurs are exceptions; but even then, there’s nothing nearly as simple and sympathetic as these people, and these faces.