a good painting is like a good book you want to read again and again

i get so confused. what is art? is it supposed to say something? state the obvious, supply simple answers?
images, images everywhere. some immediately bore me, others have a temporary fascination and others keep on memorizing.
a deeper something that keeps me interested...

i never forget one of my teachers who pointed out that sometimes the interest was actually not with the piece of art, but with the object/subject...sometimes it is the "symbolism" the universal meaning of a space, landscape or color