I did not understand modern art until I saw it in the way people from that era would have seen it. I was on Day 7 of a vacation in St. Petersburg and we'd gone

I did not understand modern art until I saw it in the way people from that era would have seen it. I was on Day 7 of a vacation in St. Petersburg and we'd gone from gallery to gallery for nearly a week, covering art from the 14th century onwards. After about the 10,000th realistic painting with vaguely mythological/religious themes, it was simply exhausting. And then we entered a room that housed Matisse's 'The Conversation' and it took my breath away. A gigantic, bright blue painting in an old Russian palace after a week of gallery hopping...it was absolutely majestic. I can only imagine the impact something like that must have had on people who had known nothing but the same old realistic style. What throws me about Van Gogh, though, is that unlike Matisse, he's not entirely modern or abstract - he's still trying to capture some semblance of reality, and he's even making an attempt at realistic perspective, but something is just off. I admire the style, but I could never come to grips with what he's trying to do (or not trying to do) with his perspectives.