At times, I've heard and over-heard people talk about how hard it is for them to 'get' certain artists. Modernism did that. Still does. Sure, before Modernism there was art that made you stop and scratch at you head, but it was Modernism that really went at this ethos hard.
Life can sometimes be hard to get. Most of the time sometimes. Even when it does make sense, the next day you can awake confused by that which was so crystal yesterday. Or you can come home from your jog, aware of that which you didn't 'get', when you left the house in the early morning. 'Getting' anything on this planet is relative – relative to when and if you are 'getting' it or not. Somewhere around the beginning of the 1900's, artists began to feel the need to transcribe and retell this relativity.