I have absolutely no appreciation of art. Paintings, sculptures, photographs, dance, classical music, etc. I have no framework, I don’t get it. But every year I try to see if something evolved in me and every year it’s been a failure. Ballets, symphonies, art museums, totally wasted on me.
There’s a good chance that Ms. Plan B and I will go to the Rembrandt/Dutch painters exhibit at the Met before Christmas. Any ideas on how to make the most of this?
‘Ah, Bach!’
You literally have never found one thing to like, in any art museum ever?
I’d doesn’t have to be any deeper than “I like it.” To get the most out of the experience, look at the paintings, and decide which, if any, you like.
If that doesn’t work, go down and visit the Arms & Armor exhibit cause its frickin’ sweet. 
Run to the library and check out a copy of Mariett Westermann’s “A Worldly Art” and skim it before you go. It’s a good thin thematic survey of Dutch art. That will give you the historical/cultural framework at least.
Or, when you look at the Pieter de Hooch paintings, squint at them until all you see is blobs of color, and then realize how much they look like 20th c abstract paintings when you take out all the stuff.
Rembrandt has a great understanding of using light to augment his composition. He knows how to direct your eye exactly where he wants it to rest.
He’s also great at portraits, with an excellent sense of character in his faces and figures.
I think the best way to gain an appreciation of art is to do it. Try painting every day for the next few weeks and then see how those Rembrandts look to you.
Read “Picture This” by Joseph Heller.
You’ll find Rembrandt facinating.
I just had a thread on this subject that might be helpful to you.
Excellent advice. The details are the eye candy, but the composition is what’s really going on.
Take notice of one thing – When your eye enters the frame, note where it does so. Bottom left, most likely? Then notice the path that it takes around the canvas. You’re not led right to dead center, are you? A good artist will take you on a journey. Notice how you’re not really looking at objects, but shapes, rhythms, and values. (Values are, in general, stronger colors, usually darks.) Where does your eye end up? There is really only one center of interest, and everything else is just support for it. That’s where the most dramatic stuff is. It will have the highest contrasts between low and high values, and the most detail. Can you find it? It should be fairly obvious, but a good artist can fool you a bit.
Here’s a case study: A few months ago, I saw something in a gallery that held my interest for a good long time. It was an oil painting of a young black girl, wearing a white T shirt. She was standing with her back to a wall, looking slightly over her shoulder, just barely curious about the viewer. Her forearm was outstretched, and holding a book. In the background was a church.
Great. Cute kid, and I’ve distracted her from her reading. Next.
But what was really going on there? I don’t really recall how my eye was led in, but I was almost immediately drawn to her right eye. Dark skin, white eye. It had the most value contrast of anything, and the most detail. It was clearly the center of interest. I was then led around her face, to her other eye, her nose, mouth, and hair. That led me down to the back of her neck, then to where he back met the wall. Low value shirt, low value wall, but they created a high value shadow.
Notice shadows. We tend to think of them as being pretty unimportant, but in a painting, they are often the most interesting objects to be seen. They create drama.
From that shadow I was led to the underside of her arm, once again a nice value contrast. That led to the spine of the book. The line was lost there, but picked up by the side of the church. I followed that up to the roof, then the steeple, down the other side of the roof, and right back into the girl’s face. Then it all started again.
My eye made a little clockwise journey, then a bigger one, then the smaller one again, then the bigger one, and so on. And with each journey, I noticed more and more little details. There were little side trips. Through the folds of the shirt, the pages of the book, the weathered paint of the church. There was an incredible amount to take in.
It was an excellent example of compositional mastery.
Google Sister Wendy. Read some of her art reviews.
You fail to enjoy all music, books, photos, movies, etc.? These are all art. Sounds like you are having trouble with classical art, or “high-brow” art.
Thanks for all the responses. I got hit with a big project at work and haven’t been on the boards since I posted it. I’m catching up tonight. Very helpful ideas.
Believe it or not, each of the above comments was very helpful to me in getting my mind out of a rut and working on this.
To answer the question…“No, sorry, I haven’t.” But that got me thinking and I did put in some work choosing art and photographs for my office and my home and I enjoyed doing it and that gave it some kind of context and I had some sense of what I like. So I started to think: What if I were some rich guy in Amsterdam a few hundred years ago and I had to decorate my living room.
Sounds good I’ll do that.
More good ideas
This is a wild and crazy idea. I’ve often thought to myself that if I started painting you’d have to drag me away from the art museums because I’d be dying to see how the masters painted noses and fingers and light and all that. But I actually may do it. Or at least I’m thinking about it.
sounds like another good idea.
Thanks, I just read through it quickly. Lots of great ideas and input.
No actually, I love independent films, sophisticated plays, several kinds of music. In the OP I was referring to visual art.