Picasso Surviving

I love museums, but I don’t expect to get deliriously excited in them. However, the Museum of Modern Art’s “Picasso and Portraiture” exhibit last summer knocked me out. Thousands of people jammed the place, and circled and spiraled through it again and again, making florid gestures, and shouting exclamations—”Get this,” and “Incredible,” and “My God,” and “Oh, wow!” It was startling to find ourselves in a museum crowd w...