I wondered how I would have looked at this painting had I been Christian

I wondered how I would have looked at this painting [Duccio's Madonna dei Frncesani] had I been Christian. Perhaps I would have liked it less, or liked it more, or liked it in a way that was beside the point, to do with its religious symbolism, and I would have then thought that was the point, that was why it had sustained my interest, and I might have been moved and delighted in a subtly but profoundly different way

H. Matar, A month in Siena (2019), 80