First, as a disclaimer before she describes the art exhibition she attended and liked:
"I'm afraid that when it comes to writing about art, I'm about as talented as I am at . . . all right, I'll say it, "dancing about architecture". Possibly, this is because I know nothing about art history or theory; I am prone to form violent aesthetic attachments to things for reasons I couldn't even begin to explain."
I suspect everyone forms their aesthetic attachments for reasons they can't explain very well. At least in my case, I can tell you what I like, and the formal, structural features that make it good (if it's art, or literature, or political theory). But none of that, so far as I can see, explains why I have an attachment to these things. So I can point to a picture of, say, Poussin's Holy Family on the Steps:
and say, notice how the shape of the figures leads the eye naturally to the baby Christ, the way the line is emphasized by Jesus' and John the Baptist's arms, the use of simple primary colors in the foreground, and muted browns and greens in the background, the way Joseph is obscured in shadow:* all true, and certainly contributing factors (if not an 'explanation' of sorts) in my liking the work. It's harder for me to explain why I always feel 'blah' about reproductions of the painting, but why seeing it in person (at the Cleveland Museum of Art) is one of the truly great art experiences I've had in my life,** and I suspect that possessing even more aesthetic theory would not get me any closer to explaining it.
Also:
"The only downside was all the people. I found it impossible to enjoy the sculptures while they contained a steady supply of tourists nodding politely as they sped through--got to catch the Picasso before we head over to the Phantom matinee!--and only barely bearable to enjoy them in the presence of other people who were, like me, ambling slowly around and through the space in order to take it in from every angle. That sounds snobbish, I suppose, but it isn't meant to be; there's no reason that anyone else should share my aesthetics, and usually they don't. But it was hard to enjoy the sculptures while they were filled with people who obviously didn't particularly care for them."
Which is undoubtably true. A museum experience is highly dependent on the people who are around you, which is unfortunate. It also compounds the oddness of looking at art in a building dedicated to holding a great deal of it: most everything in any halfway decent collection wasn't intended to be an en masse cultural experience, and approaching it in this way will always be somewhat unusual.
I remember the excitement*** of getting Caravaggio's Crucifixion of St. Anthony (here) to myself for about 20 minutes. The curators of the CMA were nice enough to place it in a room at the end of a particular wing, so I had little company, and I had enough time to look at it, notice its formal qualities, the way the placement of the light changed how I saw it, etc etc. But then, if I had regular museum visits like this, I suppose they wouldn't be as special.
*chance to bring back one of my favorite lines from my old art history professor: "Joseph always looks so bemused, doesn't he? After all, it's not his child"
**a short list: St. John the Evangelist on Patmos and Woman Weighing Pearls at the National Gallery, Supper at Emmaus at the Louvre, the Ste. Chapelle, St. Denis, the Well of Moses, the Rembrandt etchings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the soon-to-be-mentioned Caravaggio.
***and I do mean excitement. I had no idea they had Holy Family on the Steps, which was surprise enough; to get this too did require a moment of calming down before proper appreciation could begin.
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