Cultivating Connoisseurship

As a graduate student in art history, I must take exception to the response to your article on the auctioning of Van Gogh's Sunflowers ((LETTERS, May 4)). A reader states that "paintings were meant to be enjoyed by individuals with taste and an understanding of the artist's talent. They were not meant to be viewed by hundreds of schoolchildren being shooed past canvas-laden museum walls on the way to the cafeteria." The attitude displayed here is one of blatant elitism, which not only equates the enjoyment of art with a certain level of education but also implies that "taste" will be found exclusively among the rich, who can afford to buy original works of art.

Adela Oppenheim

Philadelphia