What's so fine about art?

Yesterday we visited the museum of fine arts in BsAs.  The museum was pretty good overall and I'm glad we went, but as in previous visits to similar museums and galleries, much of the artwork left me cold. There are usually a few pieces that I genuinely like or am impressed by, but a lot of the time I don't see what the fuss is about. So am I wrong not to appreciate these great works of art? Am I just an uncultured oaf who doesn't recognise brilliance when it's in front of me, or is it OK that I don't like it?

To me, there are two ways that I can be impressed by a piece of art. The first is simply that I like it. Sometimes I don't even know why I like a piece of art, but it just appeals to me. We have a picture back at home (as far as we have a 'back at home'!), that shows how wierd this can be. The picture is a Simon Bull called Sweet Surrender and it is everything that I dislike. It is of oversized flowers, the colours are gaudy and aren't the right colours for the subject, there is gilding in the picture and the frame is gilded. But I love it! Whenever I look at it I want to smile. Regardless of the individual elements that I don't like, the overall effect is one that I do. I can't explain why, but that doesn't matter. And for me, that is the essence of art, that the subject, style, and even the skill of the artist don't matter if you really like it. For that reason, to me art is completely personal and subjective. I don't think you can be told what you like or that you should like something - you either do or you don't.

That said, I do think that some pieces of art are still impressive even if you don't like them. There was a picture at the gallery yesterday that I didn't particularly like, but I thought was amazing. It was a picture of sunrise over a Dutch river scene, and whether from a distance or close up, the sun in the picture seemed to glow. The effect was astonishing as it really looked like there was light coming out if the canvas and reflecting on the water and buildings in the picture. I didn't like it, but I could appreciate the quality of it and was impressed by that.

I know that I am not educated in art, and that there are probably many pictures that show a lot of skillful techniques that I don't know about, and so I can see that I should appreciate those if I could recognise them.  And I also know that some paintings have a great deal of symbolism and tell a story about a time or situation that goes well beyond the obvious image. Again, that is my failing and I think I would appreciate those if I knew the significance.  So between those two aspects I can see that there will be some paintings or other works of art that I should be inmpressed by, for good reason, I just don't know it.

But I look at some of these great works of art and I neither like them nor can understand why they are so well regarded.  Heathen that I am, I don't get why there is such a lot of fuss about Van Gogh's sunflowers for example - there I said it out loud!  To me, in the Sunflowers and some of his other paintings like The Bedroom, the perspectives are wrong, the subjects are dull, and the images and colours are lifeless.  Now I can understand that some people may like them - and I have no problem with that because it is subjective, but why am I always being told that I should like them?  Why are they good objectively?

I know that he was an early user of thick paint on the canvas, which gives him originality, but does being original make it good? Now in fact I do quite like some of his work; pieces like Cafe Terrace at Night have an intensity about them that appeals to me and that may come from a skill of using the thick paint application, or just from his own intensity.  So maybe there is a skill here that should be evident to me in all of his paintings and it is just my lack of imagination stopping me seeing it.  Or perhaps the fact that I like some pictures is nothing to do with skill, but rather that I just like these colours better!

And the question is even harder to answer when you start to consider some of the modern art - can it really be skillful if the same effects can be replicated by a child or a chimp!

No doubt many people will disagree with me about Van Gogh's sunflowers and there may well be a whole host of undeniable factors that mean I should be impressed by his work.  I am OK with that. I still don't have to like it though!