Understanding my own issues

I admit that I have long had a problem with looking at the kinds of famous art that we are seeing here in Paris. I've never liked looking at marble statues of people, nor do I particularly like a lot of the paintings of people-scenes from the Louvre. And I finally figured out why. Yes, I'm a philistine peasant with no ability to recognize The Finer Things, but there's an actual reason I don't like the art. It's all in the eyes.

Marble statues have creepy, blank eyes with no irises or pupils. Just round, white eyeballs with no focal point and no personality. They look at you like the undead, and because they are usually in some sort of holy pose or semi-sexy pose, their lack of eyes is even more unsettling. Statue after statue of blank eyes looking like they are pleading for something...that's an odd experience. Watching someone try to be erotic and undead at the same time just feels all wrong. It makes you want to call in Buffy the Vampire Slayer for a little bit of cover.

In the paintings, there are pupils and irises in the eyes, but there aren't so many people actually looking at each other. Often they are looking up, asking the heavens why life sucks so much in this particular scene, or in some cases, looking all serene and thankful. In many paintings people are looking at the baby Jesus, who is lying there looking like either (1) a baby, or (2) a little man wrapped in baby cloth. Seriously. Look at some famous Jesus and Mary paintings, and you will see that the baby face isn't babyish at all. Weirdest of all is the way some people paint the baby's hands as grown-up hands, which really is freaky.

A beggar looks at a woman in one scene, but she is looking at the plate where she is dropping her coin. Crowds of people watching Jesus do something famous are mostly looking at Jesus, or the heavens, or out at the viewer, or anywhere, but the people do not make eye contact with each other.  You would think, if someone were being put on trial or crowned or asked to change water into wine, you'd have a couple of onlookers whispering to each other like, "What is he even WEARING?" But no one seems to interact, not even when they are killing each other. All the humans are alone in some way, even in this huge crowd. And they usually aren't happy. Maybe they can't look at each other in case they  start giggling inappropriately, but they could look at each other once in awhile, don't you think?

My parents always told me to look a man in the eye when I'm about to disembowel him. And that's probably why I don't like this kind of art.