The Picasso’s seemed to be near the entrance to a room, incidentally, which made the lightbulb go on about why this painting was here and not there.

I guess I’m still pointing over and again to qualitative forms of commensuration, and I’ve been trying to connect that to anchoring ideas. Right now, they float side-by-side but not yet synthesized..

Loved loved loved the Rothko room, btw. That makes me more trendy than knowledgeable, I think.

Her argument is directed toward understanding canon formation, and she supports your notion that Picasso is central to this process in Modern Art. She is also interested in the “display proximity”, if you will, of particular artists. However, she thinks of art works as a piece–that is, she does not treat Picasso’s function differently than Brecht’s, for example.

While I am convinced by the evidence demonstrating Picasso’s foundational status to many ideas of what modern art was and thus I buy the argument that he is an entry point for art historical knowledge, it is a different thing to argue that he is the standard against which all works are considered, and I find this less convincing.

Or, I misunderstand the idea, because I would use your bird example to make the same point–cardinals and robins are very poor standards for someone seeking to understand the birdness of a penguin. Aren’t they? Or, aren’t they good only when combined with two or three other metaphors? Like, the only whale to have teeth and not baleen (I know this does not exist) or the only snake that has feet (again, not real)?