It was a breezy London afternoon. David and I decided to wander into the Tate Modern. I’ve always been more of a medieval art person, the kind of art that tells stories with pretty faces, swords, and symbolism. Modern art? Not really my thing. Too abstract, too ambiguous. It’s more like a gamble wondering is this genius or just…red paint? But Tate is Tate. You don’t skip it.
So there we were, two mildly skeptical visitors riding escalators between cavernous white rooms. We decided to make a game of it: from a distance, we’d try to guess what each piece was about before reading the title. Then we’d walk up and read the plaque to see how wildly off we were.
I was proudly scoring a grand zero. David wasn’t doing much better. Honestly, some pieces felt like they were thrown on a wall, labeled with themes like “existential dread” or “structural decay,” and called contemporary. Some were intriguing, most were — well, modern.
Then came that painting.
It wasn’t placed at eye level like the others—it was hung slightly higher, making you tilt your head back just a bit. From afar, it looked like a black canvas filled with vertical red streaks, almost like a child had scribbled wildly with a crayon. Stark. Sombre. Ominous. It felt like an episode of the apocalypse painted in code. But something about it held me.
As I looked up at it, something clicked. It reminded me of a stained glass window in an old Gothic church. The kind that draws your eyes up, the kind that holds silence and reverence. “It looks like a church window,” I said, almost instinctively.
David scoffed, “A church? That? It’s just lines!”
We walked up to read the label. Cathedral, it read. 1950, oil on canvas. By Norman Lewis, USA.
We looked at each other—eyes wide, small smiles growing. I had guessed a modern art piece, correctly. Somehow. Euphoria is a strong word, but it fits. I was giggling for the next few hours. I finally had a point in our guessing game—and maybe, just maybe, I was starting to get modern art.
When I think of that day, it reminds me that art is not just about what’s painted. It’s about how it’s presented. I’m not sure I would’ve made that connection if it hadn’t been hung slightly higher, forcing me to look up—just like you would in an actual church. The placement changed everything. Sometimes, meaning lies in the angles, in the posture it demands of you, in the light it borrows from the surroundings.
In this connoisseur’s words, art is about perception—but sometimes, it’s also about perspective.
Vineesha Badabhagni 
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