Has anyone ever considered the abstract question, “Why do most forms of art moves us so strangely, be it music, dance, art, fashion, and etcetera?”
It is very much possible but not certain that a piece of art moves us intensely because it expresses the sentiments of the artist. Conceivably the tune of a song tells us the mood of the composer, or the elements in an abstract piece of work of a painter shows his state of mind. And if this is the case then material beauty such as the beauty of a rose, does not move most of us the way a piece of art does. Though it is beautiful, but it is not eloquent. It does move us, but not aesthetically. The word, “Aesthetics” derives from a Greek word for perception, and is typically used to refer to what is valuable about experiences as perceptual experiences. It is most commonly used to refer to what is visually and auditory pleasing.
The difference between the “expressive art” and “material beauty” is that expressive art imparts the emotions felt by the artist and that material beauty implies nothing.
So from where and how does an artist feel the emotions that he expresses? Sometimes material beauty plays its part here. The observation of natural beauty is the immediate cause of artists’ sentiments most of the time. Then are we suppose to assume that an artist feels or sometimes feel for material beauty what we fell for a work of art? Is it possible that at times for an artist, material beauty is somehow expressive that is capable of evoking aesthetic emotion? Does the artist see a whole new thing behind it as we feel something behind the forms of a work of art? Should we assume that whatever emotion that an artist feels is an aesthetic emotion felt for something significant which usually escapes our naked eyes?
We usually believe the artist when they tell us that they do not create works of art to gain attention, but only because they materialize a particular kind of feeling. And what is this feeling particularly; they find it hard to explain, because every experience differs from person to person.
From time to time, when an artist, let’s say a painter, looks at things, he infers them as pure forms in certain relations to each other, and feels sentiments for them as such. Now these are his moments of inspiration, which is followed by his want to express what he felt. The sentiments that the artist feels in the moment of inspiration is not for the object seen as means, like if an artist views a wooden chair, he isn’t seeing it as an furniture to sit on, but he sees it as pure form, that is, as ends in themselves, like he views its angles, curves, sees it in lines and colors.
To see objects as pure forms is to see them as ends in themselves.
Everybody I suppose often gets a vision of material objects as pure forms. It is even possible and probable that we see them with the eye of an artist. Most of us, once in our lives have had a sudden vision of a landscape as pure form. For once, instead of seeing it as fields and sky and trees, we have felt it as lines and colors. And in that very moment, had we not won a tremor indistinguishable from what we feel for art? And if this is the case, then it is clear that the tremor we felt for material beauty is a thrill that only a piece of art can give, just by seeing it in lines and colors. We can say that having see that in pure form, having freed it from all casual interests, from all that could have been acquired of its commercial value, the artist in the end sees it in pure form instead of means.
We are profoundly moved by certain art works because the artist can express his feelings through lines and colors, music and etcetera as an emotion felt for reality which reveals itself through the mediums of art.
The sentiments that an artist feels in his moment of inspiration, that everyone else feel rarely when we view objects artistically, and that many of us feel when we admire works of art, are of the same kind. All would be sentiments felt for reality, revealing itself through pure form via medium of art.