As emphasized earlier, the aim here is to cultivate thinking dispositions - broad attitudes, tendencies, and habits of thinking. Art commonly brings with it an atmosphere of heightened affect synergistic with the building of dispositions. For instance, we could understand the prow better through connecting it with the Tanimbarese culture. Perhaps this brief list reveals something of why art is special. It is not so often the case that we can learn in the presence of compelling objects that engage our senses, allow for many kinds of cognition, connect to many facets of life, sustain our attention, and so on.
Art is an opportunity.
Let us not miss it. We see right away what there is to see, or believe we do. We like it or we do not. And that is all there is to it. But looking at art in ways that make sense of it calls for much more than that.