8 JUNE 2002, Page 31

From Mr Gabriel Ready Sir: Diverging value judgments on Picasso

are necessary and healthy for a study of art history. I would think that Michael Ayrton's intellectual consternation with Picasso's urge to 'engulf an existing formula' has analogies to the world of literature. Shakespeare's random' use and abuse of convention for entertainment's sake was frowned upon by his more academic and intelligent contemporary Ben Jonson.

Five hundred years on, it is safe to say who is the major genius and who is the 'minor genius'. It will be no different with Picasso and Matisse but, in the meantime, the public will have to put up with art critics who tell us otherwise.

Gabriel Ready

Ottawa, Canada