Two things can inhibit us from fully understanding high art. One is that fine art is not meant for easy, simple consumption. We have to learn how to interpret it. Just as a pop song is easier to listen to than a symphony, or just as one would sooner turn to a light novel than an epic poem, higher works require greater understanding and mental effort but yield greater rewards. The other impediment connecting with a work of high art is that we are sometimes put off by the limitations of art itself in depicting its object, particularly when it comes to sacred art.
The feeling of shame in not understanding great works is not a new predicament. In George Eliot’s “Middlemarch,” one of the characters, Dorothea, feels the same sensations on beholding frescoes and paintings in Rome.
