How do I know this? I'm not an art historian. What I know of van Gogh's life I read in books. But a few years back, my wife and I hung a rather nice framed van Gogh print in a hallway at home. The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise was meant to be a decoration, nothing more. It was a rather somber image of a lone woman walking past a church that looked, frankly, haunted.­ I didn't give it much thought.

But while in Paris on business soon after, I stopped off at the Musée d'Orsay to view the Impressionist paintings. There, among the walls lined with Monets and Manets, was a room dedicated to van Gogh. Room 35, on the fifth level, to be precise. And there hung The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise. Only the real thing wasn't some drab portrait, but a dramatic rendering of a misshapen Gothic cathedral ringed by bubbling moats of lava and wildflowers. The sky wasn't black at all, but an unholy shade of blue that I had only seen in nature. And the paint was applied so thickly­ that it seemed as if the whole complex image was going to leap off the canvas.

Suddenly, and for the first time in my life, I got art. It had nothing to do with pretty paintings. Rather, it was like a punch in the gut, a sensation so palpable and emotionally charged that I could not look away. I stared at The Church for a very long time that day. This led to a deeper appreciation of not just the Monets and Manets, but also of underrated artists like Turner (whose Rain, Steam and Speed is a work of pure brilliance) and Pissarro. And, thanks to the visceral power of that painting, I also learned that art is subjective. I like what I like, even if it doesn't match someone else's taste - and that's okay. It's rather freeing to walk into a museum and stare at a painting that I enjoy, unhindered by concerns over whether or not a more advanced art connoisseur might think me a Philistine.