Our time and attention are scarce. Art is not that important to us, no matter what we might like to believe. So we should stop self deceiving and admit to ourselves that we don't just love "art for art's sake." Our love of art is often quite temporary, dependent upon our moods, and our love of art is subservient to our demand for a positive self-image. How we look at art should account for those imperfections and work around them.
Art has a social role in addition to its aesthetic value. We like art for how it complements our self-images and our relationships with others. Being by nature a lover of theory, I enjoy identifying with the grid-based abstract art of Piet Mondrian more than with Victorian fairy painting. When I was single, I would have been suspicious if a date of mine loved Monet above all other artists. He is a wonderful painter, but I would fear that she would find my tastes—which include Bruce Nauman and Jeff Koons—too strange and that I would find her too mainstream.
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