War & Peace Quote by Pablo Picasso

Picasso’s jab at "good" sense lands because it treats prudence not as a virtue but as a policing mechanism. The scare quotes do the heavy lifting: he’s not attacking intelligence or craft, he’s skewering the culturally approved version of reasonableness that keeps art legible, marketable, and safe. "Good sense" is the adult in the room that quietly asks, Will this embarrass you later? Will anyone buy it? Will it fit the category? Picasso frames that voice as creativity’s chief enemy because it turns the studio into a courtroom where every impulse has to justify itself.

The line also reads as a defense of artistic illegibility at the moment it’s most vulnerable. Picasso’s career is essentially a public argument against inherited taste: Cubism’s fractured perspectives, the mask-like faces, the refusal to paint the world as the eye expects. Those moves weren’t accidents; they were wagers made in spite of common sense, often against the expectations of patrons and critics who wanted virtuosity to look familiar. By elevating "good" sense to a chief enemy, he implies creativity isn’t a gentle muse but a hostile negotiation with internalized rules.

There’s subtextual swagger, too: Picasso mythologizing the artist as someone who must betray consensus to see clearly. It’s a provocation aimed at both audiences and makers. If your work feels sensible, he suggests, check whether you’ve mistaken compliance for clarity.