Unfamiliar works have the barrier of their strangeness, almost akin to fakery . Famous ones come with an even more dangerous obstacle, their familiarity and reputation, almost akin to a religion . Faced with art, then, most people just let their needs and their parents' truisms do the talking. Or they wait for the artist to start lecturing. Thankfully, they usually wait in vain.
Words never contain a work of art.
Yet anyone who has sustained a loving relationship knows that it takes a lot of communication. Art asks one to enter a broken conversation, a half-overheard dialog between the work and the world. Newcomers to art distrust that demand. Most often, too, they would never know how to begin. A critic's job is to break the ice.