Culture clash

This struck me tonight:
"Mary looked at the picture for some time without saying anything.
Indeed, she didn't know what to say; she was taken aback, she was
at a loss.  She had expected a cubist masterpiece, and here was a
picture of a man and a horse, not only recognisable as such, but
even aggressively in drawing.  Trompe-l'oeil--there was no other
word to describe the delineation of that foreshortened figure
under the trampling feet of the horse.  What was she to think,
what was she to say?  Her orientations were gone.  One could
admire representationalism in the Old Masters.  Obviously.  But
in a modern...?  At eighteen she might have done so.  But now,
after five years of schooling among the best judges, her
instinctive reaction to a contemporary piece of representation
was contempt--an outburst of laughing disparagement.  What could
Gombauld be up to?  She had felt so safe in admiring his work
before.  But now--she didn't know what to think.  It was very
difficult, very difficult."

-- Aldous Huxley, Crom Yellow