Pablo Picasso , by common consent the greatest artist of the twentieth century, was a legend in his own lifetime - part showman, part shaman - a brilliantly successful piece of self-fashioning and self-promotion. All his life he engaged with the masters. His work is at once a rereading and a rivalling of the history of painting.

Alex Danchev presents Picasso furioso, hurling on the empty canvas the diary of his life, his preoccupation with posterity, and his duels with the masters, past and present - Cezanne, Velazquez, Goya, Delacroix, Matisse, Braque. Nothing is withheld. « Art is never chaste », said Picasso. « Art is dangerous. »