From his earliest years Pablo Picasso was a passionate student of the European painting tradition. He was naturally drawn to the Spanish masters Velázquez and Goya, but such figures as Rembrandt, Delacroix, Ingres, Manet, and Cézanne were also important artistic heroes. Picasso repeatedly pitted himself against these masters, taking up their signature themes, techniques, and artistic concerns in audacious paintings of his own. Sometimes his "quotations" were direct, other times highly allusive. Always Picasso made the implicit case that it was he in the 20th century who most forcefully reinvigorated the European tradition.

Liberally illustrated with 150 full-color plates of works by Picasso and those who inspired him, the book showcases the technical dexterity, independence, and vitality of Picasso's creative processes as he daringly transformed the art of the past into, as he described it, "something else entirely."