the common denominator.................

 

Mark Rothko   Number 10     1950   Oil on canvas

It is really one of the most serious faults which can be found with the whole conception of democracy, that its cultural function must move on the basis of the common denominator. Such a point of view indeed would make a mess of all of the values which we have developed for examining works of art. It would address one end of education in that it would consider that culture which was available to everyone, but in that achievement it would eliminate culture itself.

This is surely the death of all thought.

-Mark Rothko