Blake Gopnik on How Scenes at the Women’s March Reminded Him of Delacroix

THE DAILY PIC (#1717): It’s one of the great clichés of art-talk—that pictures shape the way we see the world. At the Women’s March in Washington on Saturday, I actually started to feel annoyed at the way I couldn’t seem to see beyond the art I’ve seen. A group of protesters milling about immediately started to look like a Jeff Wall. A woman rising up above others became Liberty Leading the People. The more eccentric marchers seemed Winograndian. The “picturesque” ruled.

After a bit, however, I started to feel sorry for participants who were not seeing the scene around us through art-colored glasses. Art was helping me turn an ocean of passing marchers—over one million of them, pace Herr Trump—into a picture gallery I was passing through. (Photos by Lucy Hogg)

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