Art: Anatomy of a Minotaur

(10 of 10)

Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (55), and Delacroix's The Women of Algiers (50), let alone the tedious parade of dwarfs, jesters, harlequins, Castilian grandees and copulating troglodytes that has been issuing from Mougins since 1969, survive in the world's attention for one reason alone: they have been painted by Picasso.

Many a lesser Picasso, of course, is still better than many a lesser man's best, and the conventional response is that Picasso may yet surprise us. Perhaps, but the likelihood dwindles, and in any case it no longer matters: the issue of final greatness in art does not pivot on surprise but rather on its opposite—the authority of the still center. You cannot invade history, as Picasso has done, without some idea of what to do with it, and Picasso's aim rarely faltered. It was to reconcile history with Eros, to live as both gratified savage and historically dissatisfied modern. The insatiable will of the child prodigy and the old man's lust for work are, in the end, the same.