What Do You See?

When you look at something which pretends to be art, what do you see/say?
The general response is "I like the colors."
It gets you by. If you know anything about art you automatically turn on your internal computer
and look for influences. Picasso, Van Gogh, whomever. We need to put it into a category.
How much Art History the viewer knows allows the artist's predecessors to expand. All art comes from some other art.You can only know as much as you have studied. Art History is the subject which artists and viewers of art fail. It is the subject in art school that is the least popular. Make it not learn about it. Artists/dealer/viewers are  blind to their past. We are surrounded by history, from the general as-seen-in -Museums-all-over- historic to the local historic which is never seen a museum. Artists and likers/buyers of art should know about what they look. That takes work, but so does anything we do or like: sports, cooking, gardening...you get the idea.
Art in museums and art in galleries do not correspond. Would a Picasso or Matisse of 1916 find a market in the local galleries? What about the "bad" painting done in Germany circa 1907 now known as German Expressionism? Every major city and its suburbs has a community of artists who have hope that others in their community will have the knowledge and pocketbook to support their art; yet all those likers like is the color because it goes with their decor. Accept it or deny it we are decorators. I have changed an important designation for major historic themes in art. I thought art was philosophic/ religious or political. Now I think it is first and foremost decorative. It has to please the eye and then mind, even the caves pictures had to please their makers and patrons or they would not still be there.

I'm doing water colors, waiting for a new hip.