# Art you didn't initially "get" but came to later? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 9, 2015, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396 "2015-08-09T19:44:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/1 "2015-08-09T19:44:20Z")
Anyone else experience this–something you thought you could write off or just wasn’t for you that you later come to love? I rewatched The Godfather in theaters last night. I enjoyed it the first time I saw it, but I didn’t love it. I appreciated it, but I didn’t think it was one of my personal favorites. After I saw it last night, though, all that changed. I think it was seeing it on a big screen. Everything just looked grander, more epic. (And hearing that score on real speakers didn’t hurt, either!) Plus, I think the ability not to be able to pause to go to the bathroom or check email helped. I was fully immersed. I feel like I know now why it’s on so many top 10 lists of all times. Anyone else have any movies (or books, music, plays, etc.)? ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/2 "2015-08-09T20:26:40Z")
Music: the band Hawkwind. I heard Warrior On The Edge Of Time, and Space Ritual, and thought it was good. I also heard some other stuff that I thought was just weird, and I never gave them a real fair shot. I eventually saw them live, and it was like the doors got blown off the whole thing, and I finally appreciated the Rock Legend of Hawkwind. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/3 "2015-08-09T20:30:34Z")
It took me 3 minutes, but I did get to see that saw ship in that holographic ppicture. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Krupe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@Leo\_Krupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Krupe)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/4 "2015-08-09T23:15:59Z")
Paintings in general. I grew up in a mostly academic family, so we were cultured (travel, museums, etc were a big part of my upbringing), but I never got into art, because of the stereotype pretentiousness. I realized some years ago that it doesn’t matter, if I like it, I like it, and to hell with the pretentious snobs. There’s nothing about art to “get” in the way the stereotype critics say, i.e., “The artist is portraying man’s struggle against himself in the cosmos while trying to avoid the battle in his own mind with which he must fight against his own perceptions of being,” that sort of gibberish. With some paintings, I look at them and they touch me in some way. Others don’t. If I get a visceral feeling about it, I like it, regardless of the style or era it was painted, or the artist. I appreciate the work that went into all of them, even if I don’t get them, from abstract to hyper realism to the Old Masters. Especially from the Renaissance forward, when art began to be more realistic. That’s what I appreciate now, and didn’t when I was young. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/5 "2015-08-09T23:17:59Z")
Modern jazz used to leave me cold. I liked older forms, like traditional jazz and swing (some of it, anyway). Then one day I heard some Thelonious Monk that really grabbed me. Since then I’ve come to appreciate other performers like Bud Powell, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown. . . ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/6 "2015-08-10T00:44:40Z")
The first time I saw W.C. Fields’ “The Fatal Glass of Beer,” I thought it was pretty lame except for a line or two. I kept running into it and discovered the more I watched, the funnier it seemed (my reaction is usually just the opposite). I think now it may be his funniest effort. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/7 "2015-08-10T00:53:44Z")
When I read the Chronicles of Narnia as a kid, _A Horse and his Boy_ was my least favorite of them. When I re-read them as an adult, I realized just how vastly much of it went right over my head back then, and which I get now, and it’s now my second-favorite. And on a more general note, anything we played in high school or college marching band. A lot of those songs, back when we were playing them, I found kind of annoying… but nowadays, whenever one happens to come on the radio, it’s “Hey, that was a band song! Cool!”. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/8 "2015-08-10T02:22:08Z")
At a certain point in my life I began enjoying old classic novels (like Moby-Dick or Vanity Fair). I’m not sure what changed my mind – a longer attention span? the ability to look things up quickly on Wikipedia? more knowledge of the human experience? Beats me. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/9 "2015-08-10T02:59:28Z")
Renoir. I was known for saying “Renoir sucks.” My point being that he was a precious portrait painter of upper middle class Paris who happened to use Impressionist technique and hang out with the real artists. Then I saw his work at the Barnes in Philadelphia. Wow. There were a few paintings that changed my view. I still don’t think he is at the top of the heap of that era, but wow his great stuff is truly brilliant. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/10 "2015-08-10T03:11:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > When I read the Chronicles of Narnia as a kid, _A Horse and his Boy_ was my least favorite of them. When I re-read them as an adult, I realized just how vastly much of it went right over my head back then, and which I get now, and it’s now my second-favorite. I might say that about the Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. Martin Gardner would have agreed, I’m sure. I could say that about Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, too! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/11 "2015-08-10T05:56:37Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > Modern jazz used to leave me cold. I liked older forms, like traditional jazz and swing (some of it, anyway). Then one day I heard some Thelonious Monk that really grabbed me. Since then I’ve come to appreciate other performers like Bud Powell, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown. . . My jazz breakthrough was Claude Bolling’s “Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano,” which is a lovely blend of “classical” and “jazz.” A lovely mixture of both, in delightful proportions. That let me work my way slightly more toward the pure jazz side of the field. > [@WordMan](#): > > Renoir. > > I was known for saying “Renoir sucks.” My point being that he was a precious portrait painter of upper middle class Paris who happened to use Impressionist technique and hang out with the real artists. > > Then I saw his work at the Barnes in Philadelphia. Wow. There were a few paintings that changed my view. I still don’t think he is at the top of the heap of that era, but wow his great stuff is truly brilliant. Impressionism in general, and, yeah! A little more exposure in actual art museums – reproductions in books are good, but the real thing is so much better! – does the trick. On the other hand, I still don’t find myself able to enjoy still-life pictures of food. Flowers, okay. Even a bowl of fruit, all right. But a plate full of friend chicken parts, or sandwich makings, or a bowl of soup, nuh uh. My mother used to hate opera. She just detested the “screeching.” But I snuck up on her with Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer” – songs, not really opera arias – and cracked the dam. (Haw! I made a pun.) ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/12 "2015-08-10T06:00:23Z")
Expressionist Art. I thought that it was just childish crap that pretentious wankers went along with. Of course, the pretentious wankers are every, so, they will glom onto Expressionism as well, but, after taking a Humanities class, I understood what Expressionist artists were about. Kind of. Also, _Green Acres_. I thought that it was childish and idiotic, even after watching it for about 2 years (in the 60s; not a lot of options, so, I had to watch that.) Then, watching it w/my girlfriend, her brother came in and said “I love this show; everybody’s crazy except for Oliver”. Light bulb time. Duh. In my defense, I must say that I’m brilliant, just, oh, maybe a little…slow…on…the…uptake… ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/13 "2015-08-10T09:21:35Z")
The first time I saw/read \*\*E. E. Cummings \*\*'s poem _l(a_, I rejected it immediately. “Oh wow, you’ve scribbled random letters on a page. And some parentheses, too! How edgy…” > [@](#): > > l(a > > le > af > fa > > ll > > s) > one > l > > iness > > **—E. E. Cummings** About 10 years later, I stumbled upon it again and… you know how sometimes an object seems to emerge from a picture, something that had always been there but you had never noticed before that becomes obvious all of a sudden? That’s what happened to me then. I bought an anthology of his poems shortly after that and I return to it regularly. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_of\_Words](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f6c823/32.png) [@Jack\_of\_Words](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_of_Words)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/14 "2015-08-10T12:05:11Z")
I was dismissive of Pink Floyd for a long, long time, until I heard a busker playing ‘Wish You Were Here’ on a battered old acoustic. Maybe it was the timing, but I now think it’s a great song and I quite like a few others of theirs. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/15 "2015-08-10T13:27:22Z")
I couldn’t even tell you the artist, but there was a painting I saw at the art museum in St. Louis several years ago. It was about a 12’ square black and white painting of some guy’s face. Just a big head on the wall. Yeah OK, big deal, I don’t always get modern art. Moving on. About 15 minutes later I’m at the far end of the building, and find myself looking down the hallway through the doorways of multiple galleries. And all the way down at the other end, perfectly framed by the last doorway, was the big giant head. That was just so cool! ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/16 "2015-08-10T13:52:04Z")
Never been a fan of Andy Warhol’s work and always thought the Marilyn Monroe paintings were dumb. Then a few years ago we stumbled into an art gallery that had the full series of Marilyn’s up on a high, white wall, in a very large room, with bright light on them. Seen together like that, from a fair distance with good light… THEN I understood them. Very nice. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/17 "2015-08-10T21:29:47Z")
Jackson Pollock’s drip art. Didn’t see anything to it when young. (We had a jigsaw puzzle of one of his painting’s. A real test of skill putting that together.) But the close up shots shown in _Pollock_ wowed me. There was something 3D about them that seemed to show a deeper structure. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/18 "2015-08-10T23:51:09Z")
I never thought Picasso or Pollock very important until I had to teach a class about them. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/19 "2015-08-11T00:17:09Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Jackson Pollock’s drip art. Didn’t see anything to it when young. (We had a jigsaw puzzle of one of his painting’s. A real test of skill putting that together.) > > But the close up shots shown in _Pollock_ wowed me. There was something 3D about them that seemed to show a deeper structure. I’ve posted about this elsewhere here, but I used to make fun of Jackson Pollock until I finally saw one in person at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and was mesmerized. I think I’ve gone back and looked at that painting again half a dozen times, and I don’t even live in New York. ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396/20 "2015-08-11T02:35:55Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > I couldn’t even tell you the artist, but there was a painting I saw at the art museum in St. Louis several years ago. It was about a 12’ square black and white painting of some guy’s face. Just a big head on the wall. Yeah OK, big deal, I don’t always get modern art. Moving on. About 15 minutes later I’m at the far end of the building, and find myself looking down the hallway through the doorways of multiple galleries. And all the way down at the other end, perfectly framed by the last doorway, was the big giant head. That was just so cool! Sounds like a Chuck Close portrait. [This here](http://portrait.pulitzerarts.org/north-main-gallery/keith/) is in St. Louis. Is it the one? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-you-didnt-initially-get-but-came-to-later/727396.md?page=2)