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Art is always created within a context; a social, intellectual, political, economic, emotional milieu. The key to understanding art is to understand the circumstances that surrounded its creation.

All art is conceptual' in that the artist had an idea that was given form in the work of art; the artist had something original to show us, something to communicate.

Take the Mona Lisa, for example, widely regarded as a great work of art. But what makes it great? What sets it apart from other early 17th century art? There are thousands of portraits, what makes this one special? To understand what makes it great, you have to see it in the context of the early 17th century, you have to know what innovations da Vinci made, what new ideas he incorporated into the work, what new painting methods he used, what new concepts of the appropriate subject of a painting he illustrated.

And this is what is important: that da Vinci pushed the limits of what was considered "art" in the early 17th century. All our important artists have similarly challenged the conventions of their day, utilizing new techniques, new materials, and new ideas.

The impressionists challenged 19th century conventions by bringing in new ideas about how we saw and related to the world.

The surrealists in the early twentieth century changed what was considered appropriate subject matter for art by using dream imagery and creations of the imagination instead of the objective world.

The abstract painters of the mid-twentieth century had to tackle the idea of what made a painting. Can you remove the subject entirely and still have a painting? Can you make art out of colour and form alone, with no recognizable content?

The progression of art is always in some respect a reaction against what went before, and in some respect a new direction for the future. Understanding what it is reacting against and what follows afterwards is important to interpreting any work of art.

If you want to understand art, you have to look at it as part of a story, a journey through ideas and emotions. Some works of art have an immediate appeal, whether it be from a pleasing subject or a balanced use of colour and shape. But many works of art are not so easy to appreciate. It takes some detective work to find out what the artist is trying to say, what conventions the artist is challenging and what new ideas we are being shown.

This is what makes art so exciting and challenging. It is always straining at the limits of what is acceptable, what

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