Over the time I had people around me (mostly those whose taking my art class) asking this question: “How do you know if an art piece is a good piece or not, while all I see is just a piece of thing?” Or “How to enjoy and appreciate a piece of art?”. I always said that “If it’s stimulate your emotions (happy, sad, mad, angry, even anxious, then it’s a good art”. Most of the time the conversation would ended there, but I keep thinking about this over and over again.

To me art is essentially an expression of an emotion. Whether you are the artist or the person whose enjoying the art piece: a painting, a drawing, a song/music or an essay, there’s emotion involved. An artist uses art as his way to express his emotions, and with his art piece, he may stimulate certain emotions in people who view his art piece. Depending on how strongly they feel that emotion, the better are the chances of people appreciating that art.

We are all moved by our senses and emotions, be it design, architecture, sculpture, writing, movies, music, paintings, style, dance, light, religious iconography, gardens, or the elegance of the natural world on some level. To deny this is to be in denial of an inalienable human truth. We are all products of our senses and emotions.

So people who don’t know how to appreciate art are people with no senses and emotions? That’s also not true.

Based on my observations, also most visually intelligent people love art, while people who cannot concentrate upon a single detail for more than 10 seconds cannot enjoy art. Art requires deep concentration and deep thought about what the ambient light reflects from the art into their eyes. Not everyone is capable of spending more than a few seconds looking at something and think of nothing but that particular thing, speaking about the global problems: distractions.

Only people who spend every minute using their minds and sensibilities know how to look at art and really see it. They spend all the time needed in order to translate and enjoy art’s message.

Art can also be appreciated based on its displayed skill, historical value, religious purpose, commentary, monetary value and a slew of other metrics. That’s why art is considered an essential part of all cultures throughout the world as it has been the indispensable part of the human civilization from the Stone Age. However, these days fewer and fewer people know how to appreciate art and turn their focus to science, technology and commercials, because they find that it is very difficult to appreciate art, while all you need is your senses and emotions.

The more open and self aware you are, the more in touch you are with your senses, emotions and intuition, the more you allow yourself to be thus stimulated. So if you’re one of those people who doesn’t know how to enjoy art, it doesn’t mean that you’re senseless and emotionless. Perhaps you just haven’t utilize your senses and emotions as much as those who knows how to appreciate art.

So if you tell me someone doesn’t appreciate art I will say that that person hasn’t considered how much they interact with art. Art is everywhere, even our surroundings. So be outdoor more, enjoy the nature, as

“Nature is the art of God”  ~ Dante Alighieri (Italian Poet 1265-1321)