Best Spanish Painter?

Lowbrow Answer: Picasso
I feel like I'm reading a children's book with this guy. We get it. You put the nose above the eyes. How groundbreaking. Next thing we know, you'll be putting men in female clothing. Outrageous! Look, I just took a dump in my hand and drew a funny face on the canvas with it. Can we hang it next to Guernica?

Picasso's full name is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. No, really. What a douchebag. It's like those annoying upper middle class white women who hyphenate their names when they get married. Teabag me, Emily Robinson-Robideaux-Westingfield.


Middlebrow Answer: Goya
This guy was dark. Although, I guess that's to be expected when you live through Cholera, the Peninsular War, the Spanish Inquisition, and deafness. He is responsible for such works as Saturn Devouring his Son, Courtyard of Lunatics, and The Disasters. I'm sorry, but "Courtyard of Lunatics" is the coolest phrase I've ever heard. It sounds like a Radiohead album. Or a Dostoyevsky novel.

The problem with Goya is that he spent much of his early years working for the Spanish crown as the court's commissioned painter. There are few things more full of lazy ineptness and blue-blooded idiocy than a monarchy. Especially the Spanish one. Living in Spain during Goya's lifetime is like getting onto a schoolbus that's being driven by a Labrador retriever: you just know something could go horribly wrong at any moment.


Highbrow Answer: Dali
You have to hand it to any artist who basically spends his life mocking the established order of modern art. Not just a painter, Dali branched out into film, sculpture, and photography as well. His "Un Chien Andalou" is one of the first modern films and is famous for a scene in which a woman's eyeball is slashed with a razor. I'd say that's a pretty highbrow thing to be famous for. The only thing I'm famous for is the picture I drew in 3rd grade that won "Best Depiction of a Pig" at the Passaquitta County Fair.

Let's quickly recap some Dali highlights:
- His wife was senile and slowly poisoned him until he couldn't draw anymore.
- He made art critic Brian Sewell lie on a statue of Christ and masturbate for him in the late 60's.
- He dehydrated himself in a bizarre attempt to reach a state of suspended animation.
If those don't sound like tales from a the life of tortured highbrow genius, I don't know what does. Maybe I should marry a lunatic and have her poison me. Then my picture of a pig would be in the Prado.