It's been a big week in art ... with Jim Pavlidis

It’s laughable to think that Cyril Rioli might never have made it to the AFL, if early concerns over his less than perfect skin fold results were taken seriously.

KPI’s are the enemy of the artist for there is no way to measure the sublime.

After the Hawk genius retired this week, The Age wrote it was “more akin to Picasso putting down his brush than a footballer ‘hanging up his boots’”, an astute observation though some art pedants would suggest Rioli was more like Picasso’s friend and rival, Henri Matisse.

At the age of 74, the French Master was forced to abandon painting following surgery for abdominal cancer, and began working with coloured paper. Perhaps created through necessity rather than choice, the resulting artwork nonetheless distilled decades of visual exploration into simple but sophisticated compositions.

They’re like Cyril Rioli at his best, making the near impossible look effortless.