David Hockney talks about Picassos works in his book, A History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen. Specifically, he examines this painting of an owl, although I’m not sure if he realised this was Picasso’s pet owl which he adopted while working in his studio in Antibes. Hockney explains in detail that it is, not just a picture of an owl it is the owl seen through Picasso’s eyes, and in actual fact we are seeing and experiencing what he saw. Both Hockney and Picasso wondered about how art worked and its emotional content. They loved to experiment, both had close emotional relationships with their animals allowing them to paint with love. This resonates in their final works. By including a personal, emotional context in their work a synergistic moment is created within the resulting painting. This is why I feel the resulting artworks rise above the simple pictures they seem to be, they hold something extra, they are indexical, they contain a very human emotion that allows the artist’s presence to be felt within the work.