Whilst I appreciate 'Modern Art' isn’t to everyone's taste I have to admit over the last year or so, to having developed a very real love for it and it's something I'm hugely keen to share with those who have not yet 'seen the light'. I must admit that like many people I wasn't particularly enamoured with Modern Art when I first came across it and probably for the same reason as most people; I didn't understand it, a six year old could have done it, how can splodges of paint really be art when you can't recognise what's been painted? Then I had my own 'Road to Damascus' moment. Several years ago I was watching a daytime TV when a magazine programme, whose name I've long forgotten, ran a piece along the lines of 'Modern Art is rubbish done by 6 yr olds' and to prove the point a roving reporter took three pieces of art out to members of the public asking them to identify the piece by a six year old, the one completed by an art student and the one painted by an established artist. The best result anyone got was two out of three. On returning to the studio the three pieces were hung in a line and the presenter welcomed art critic Brian Sewell who came on set walking past them. He was then asked to take a look and see if he could tell which was which. 'I don't need to' he said which took the presenter back a bit. The first one is 'A', the second, 'B' the third 'C' (I can't remember exactly which was which) His reply astonished the presenter because a) he'd only seen them as he walked on set and b) he was right. But he then explained why he'd identified them as he had along the lines of the 6 year old really was just splodges of paint on a canvas randomly distributed, the student had some idea of structure but his use of colour was crude whilst the artist was structured and balanced. Today his exact argument escapes me but at the time it impressed me hugely that such reasoning could be made and I’ve never forgotten it. Sometime after this I came across the work of Piet Modrian which I took an immediate liking to with its black vertical and horizontal stripes on white canvas with occasional squares or rectangles blocked in various colours, often blue, yellow and red. Although at this stage the work was simply something I liked I still had no real enthusiasm or particular liking for modern art in general but that was about to change. Now I don't know if you have ever come across quizzes on the internet along the lines of 'Who/what are you most like...' ranging from a character in Harry Potter to a member of the Nazi Party (Don't ask!) but one of these was along the lines of 'Which style of art do you most like?'. Out of interest I completed it expecting the answer to come up as 'Impressionist' or 'Old Master' or something but the reply was 'Modern Art'. So obviously I had some affinity with it without actually realising it! From then on whilst not becoming an overnight convert I did slowly take more notice of it and apart from Piet Mondrian I became aware of, particularly, the work of Jackson Pollock; perhaps regarded by many as the ultimate in giving modern art a bad name with his action paintings apparently consisting of paint thrown onto a canvas in a way that any six year old could do. But I have to say I like his work. Not because I'm an art critic or historian able to explain what the deep meaning behind his work is, or how it relates to other works, it simply makes me feel good looking at it and that surely is the bottom line with any work of art. However, I can guarantee that whenever I mention my love of Modern Art to anyone they'll tell me they don't understand it. Well fair point but if I ask them to explain a 'Traditional Painting', for example example Holbein's 'Two Ambassadors', they do so by telling me it's two men in a room. But that merely tells me what the picture is; no different to me explaining to them that a Mondrian is black stripes and coloured shapes. It doesn't explain what the picture is about. They can't tell me what the symbolism behind it means anymore than I might be able to explain the symbolism behind a Jackson Pollock. But failure to understand the symbolism doesn't stop their pleasure of the art in question so my big question has to be, 'Why can't that be extended to Modern Art?'