My exposure to major works until my mid 20's wasn't unusual- 2-inch pictures with their caption stating the real size, dorm-room Dali posters, and perhaps a few slide shows. There are many reasons why seeing the piece on the wall of a museum is better which are obvious and enumerated elsewhere. But the textbook pictures have a side benefit- helping reduce pieces to ideas.
Seeing a piece in a museum imprints extra information. For me the Picasso picture with the boy and the horse is not frameless but framed by blank wall, then a passage way and a corner on the sides, it's perpendicular to the Mademoiselles D'Avignon, off to the left on the second floor of the MOMA. At its size (5 foot?) pedestrian traffic is a medium problem, making it difficult to view from far away. It has the typical 1/2 inch of wrapped canvas along the side; it hangs at a certain height. It's a picture on a wall.
Munch's Scream I have seen only reproductions of- hundreds of times in different sizes and styles (flat, blow-up doll, office toy) but they don't fix. Mentally it comes through more clearly, leaving only the wavy figure, the dark sky, and the bridge.
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