The thing is, mes cheries, that you'll spend your next three up to nine years looking at paintings in books. I plan to spend this time looking at paintings in museums (all in all, after work a men needs some entertainment). You'll end up in libraries when I'll have the precious chance to interact directly with the objects of your monotonous study. And I'll probably learn more having more fun than you.
Looking at a tiny reproduction of a stricking fresco can give you only a slight shade of real experience of a piece of art. Good example being Fra Angelico's Crucifiction with Saint Dominic (1445).
Not particularily thrilling, no? Untill seeing this fresco in Louvre, I thought that Fra Angelico was the dullest monastic stiff painter on the earth and you probably think the same. Trecento = boring. Right?
Quite contrastly not, my sweet friends. When I saw the piece above, my mouth opened, legs grew into the floor and breath rapidly stopped. And not even a Japaneese avalanche of Paris syndrom victims could move me from there. Thanks god I eventually stopped looking as I needed to go to toilet. If I had stood ten minutes more contemplating Fra Angelico's work, it's very likely I would have became a catholic. It was so convincing. The streams of hope and serenity that flow from this piece just make you drown in the overwhelming feeling harmony and grace.
Which most of you have no idea about as the picture above is awful, low-quality and B-O-R-I-N-G.
Prospective art historians talking about paintings are like models talking about desserts. They might have a little bit of experience, but their most of their knowledge is purely theoretic.
That's why I wouldn't like to be one.
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