How do you 'view' paintings?

Depends on the circumsyances.

If I am in an art gallery, I am there to look at the art works and I will sspend more time looking at them and anlysing them.

In other cases it is a uestion of the picture speaking to me. What speaks to me is any picture that feeds into my love of the British countryside and flowers and plants. My mother was a highly skilled flower arranger and could take three pieces of grass and a dandelion and just shove them in a jar - and it was a thing of beauty.

Walk round our house, the walls are covered in pictures. The landscapes and still lives are mine, the boats and ships are DH's, almost all are originals or numbered prints.

Basgetti

Gut reaction for me. Immediate yes or no.

Same.

But I have a relative who can see colours in grass.
She asked the group if others could, but we couldnt.
Guess who is the "arty" one?

For me too, it's usually an instinctive reaction - but there have been times when someone has made a comment about a particular piece and it's made me go back and look at it from a different perspective.

Gut reaction for me too. I find that I tend to gravitate towards portraits.

I like to be able to recognise what the artist has drawn or painted.
I enjoy watching Landscape/Portrait Artist of the Year. It is interesting to see how a number of painters can produce such different work when they have the same view in front of them.
I struggle to see what message some can find in say, a completely black square. I have no idea what the artist is trying to convey with that.

Same here, though if I linger and begin to see something, I might look a bit more, but I don’t have much imagnation or creativity.

Gut reaction for me. Immediate yes or no.