i do love the history of painting very much. but i cannot tell you how tired i am of sentences like this (first sentence of a tls review by jack flam of t.j. clark's new book): "No artist has remade the visible world in a more radical way than Picasso." it's the classic modernist, look-there-goes-god-with-his-floozy superjive that has taken on by endless insufferable repetition the triviality of a cliche. but if you thought about it for a moment you'd see that it was completely insane. no one remakes the visible world by pushing paint around: picasso operated entirely in every respect within the existing visible world, and the only way he changed it at all was by literally physically re-arranging it, a highly localized effect. of course, this whole idea is based on the actually psychotic notion that the visible world is a subjective artifact, and that if you see it differently you've changed it globally. by this logic, for example, you could transform the visible world by putting on a pair of sunglasses; you don't have to stare at another cubist thingummy and then try to see the world that way, which - excuse me - does not work anyway. you destroy the visible world every time you blink, you god-like fuck. this whole idea was based on literally worshiping artists as world-creators. dude. do you actually know any artists? we did not create this world; this world created us.
the idea that picasso re-made the world is either an extremely hyperbolic figure of speech to capture your enthusiasm for what he actually did do - a kind of groan of ecstasy rather than an assertion - or it really represents a completely supernatural belief system, as wacky as any superstition you could readily name.
returning to the art-historical level from the very origin of the cosmos: it's routine to say that the purpose of cubism (for example) is to 're-make the way we see the world' or 're-make the visible world' (these phrases being regarded falsely as synonymous). but this just can't be right. if you lose a sense of the distance between cubist pictures and ordinary visual experience, you have certainly lost a sense of what was ever radical or interesting about them. they do kind of challenge your visual assumptions...at least about paintings. but you can't possibly understand it as a challenge if you don't see the contrast between cubism and realism of various sorts. nor has the world shown any sign of re-configuring itself in imitation of cubist pictures, though such pictures have become so commonplace that they've lost their power to surprise. i think the best you could say about the dora maar, above, is that it's funny, an exploration of the outer reaches of caricature.
you actually completely miss the humor once you take the approach of 'creatah, destroyah, bulbous bubbah'. we need to keep these people with us, retain them as members of our very own species. i do think picasso played with his reception, unveiled the very bathos of his godhead, which is admirable: he really did produce many jokes.