Perceiving art works has to be learned, just like listening to music. It can be helpful to use a certain strategy.

Erwin Panofsky is a well known art historian. who has developed a working model for perceiving art.This model has three layers:

1. an objective enumeration of the things we see (pre-iconographical description)
2. relating elements of the work and searching for a theme / subject of the work of art (iconographical analysis)
3. identifying the deeper meaning of the work of art in relation to its historical, geographic and social context (iconologocal interpretation)
   
   

Scheme taken from:
Straten, R. . (1994). An introduction to iconography. Yverdon, Switzerland: Gordon and Breach.