The response to this leads me to believe that a lot of people have something like aphantasia for abstraction, and/or something similar to what @charlesmurray describes as a "perceptual deficit" for seeing/feeling certain kinds of creative expression that is not concrete and literal.
People who don't "get" abstract art––perhaps an overlapping trait with other core conservative intuitions (low openness, eg)––accuse people who like Rothko or other abstract art of being taken in by some kind of social contagion or otherwise reacting to status cues, but reject the notion there is any genuine artistic merit we are reacting to. The experience of it is inaccessible to them and therefore they think it isn't real.
The abstract art appreciator in turn often makes the mistake of trying to articulate the value of the art through language, which sidetracks the question. The artistic merit of Rothko is not articulable in that way. It is a feeling. A mood. It washes over you (or not).
"What do you mean you can't see the apple in your head? It's right there. Just imagine the apple and rotate it around. The colors. The sheen. The contours of the green and red skin."
It's like this. A guy who sees the apple in his head, trying to explain to the guy who can't see the apple in his head what it's like to see an apple in your head.
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