A Beginner's Guide to Art Appreciation

I think the worst job in the world would be to be a full-time art critic. Cursed with the ability to understand what makes something great, but not the ability to make such great things yourself, you're forced to look at other people's inferior work and try to explain what's wrong with it. How depressing.

On the other hand, if you have no idea what you're doing - as in, for example, my case with most kinds of art - it's much easier to appreciate. "This person can do something I could never do." There's something admirable in that. It makes you feel a bit safer about the world, knowing that even if you can't solve all the problems, at least there's probably someone around who can fill in the blanks.

This is where I could put in a bit about innocence lost and the fact that happiness enabled by ignorance is always unsustainable, but that would kind of ruin my point, so I'll leave it out.