The primacy of ‘Type’
- In describing museum objects, it is often most useful to first decide what you are describing and why, rather than beginning with ‘who made it’ and ‘what is it called’, as is often the case with books
- if you know you’re describing a surrogate of the Mona Lisa, then you know Leonardo da Vinci is not the Creator; whoever made the surrogate is
- if you know you’re describing a collection of 20th century paintings, then you know that Picasso, Hockney et al are not the Creators; the collector is.