Snow White mourns the loss of a figurehead.
"The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history."
I don't know why it is, but there is always something distinctively more surreal about an artist or writer dying than when you lose somebody proximally and emotionally close to you. I've only dealt with Rauschenberg through galleries and books and artifacts of his lifetime, through a brief meeting with Johns when I was only fifteen and still too young to realize the magnitude of that moment.
I never met him and I still feel profound loss. It's an oddly sinking feeling.
I bet the MOMA will be packed today.