To denigrate is to belittle, to treat or represent something as lacking in value or importance. As I used it today: “Before I experienced the churches of Rome, I had a common condescension towards Baroque art. I considered it overdone. But in its presence, I don’t have that feeling. Yes, there is a lot of it. One thing on top of another. But that doesn’t make me want to denigrate it. It makes me want to engulf myself in it, time and again.”