As you may have heard, Andy Warhol’s painting “200 One Dollar Bills” sold for $43.8 million at a Sotheby’s auction this week. One of the artist’s first silk-screen paintings, the image went for over three times the amount originally anticipated by the auction house. Those in the art market are hesitantly optimistic: the sale may indicate that the economy’s affect on art sales is on the upswing. Go figure -- a painting of money is the one that has art dealers feeling better about their own bank accounts.

Naturally, pictures of the piece have been featured in most news stories about the sale, and I’ve got to be honest -- I really don’t like it very much. To be really honest, I don’t love most of Warhol’s work. I respect him and I understand why his work is good; I appreciate his  exploration of the glorification of mass consumerism and celebrity. But I just don’t like it. I have never had a desire to visit a Warhol exhibition and I’ve definitely never thought about buying a print of one of his pieces.

But you know what? That’s ok, because ultimately, we like what we like. Art is subjective. Yes, anyone could look at one of my chicken scratch stick drawings and agree that it is not as good as an MC Escher sketch, but when you’re talking about the “great” artists, it’s alright to go with your gut. You don’t have to like something just because you know it’s original and creative.

That’s an idea that it took me a long time to really accept. Years of sitting in art history classes that I was taking for fun, surrounded by art history majors, had left me -- a measly “amateur” art lover -- with the misconception that if I didn’t like a piece, it was only because I didn’t understand it; I suspected that if only I could grasp the artist’s meaning, I’d love it, too.

But that just isn’t the case. It was one Peter Paul Rubens who ultimately helped me learn this lesson. I should love Rubens -- I adore Baroque art. Bernini sculptures have literally made me laugh out loud in surprise, and Caravaggio paintings have sincerely brought me to tears. I love the action, the passion, and the energy that the movement embodies. But I hate Rubens. I can’t put my finger on why exactly; despite his work’s strong exemplification of Baroque ideals, his paintings leave me feeling nothing but annoyed. For some reason, I just don’t like him; I’ve given up trying to figure out why.

My response to Warhol is fairly similar, and I’ve accepted that that’s ok. So what if I wouldn’t personally spend $43.8 million on a Warhol painting? Somebody out there likes it -- and has a phenomenal amount of money to spend on it. Sure, we don’t all have that much money sitting around for buying original works by our favorite artists, but we’re all entitled to our own opinions. It’s ok to like what you like. Maybe the family portrait you’re having turned into a custom oil portrait painting isn’t High Art, but if you like it, that’s what matters. If you’re looking for a painting to have reproduced to display it in your home, you don’t have to pick something that you think will impress others. Don’t get a Rubens if you don’t like Rubens. Get something you love, and you’ll love the reproduction you get to hang up in your home. Sure, we can usually all agree when something’s really really good and when something’s really really bad, but the “in betweens” we get to evaluate on our own -- so embrace what you love!