Is art emotional?

Historically, emotion was seen as best subjected to reason. A man could certainly feel the gamut of human emotions, but none of them should be instinctual in the sense we tend to mean. For instance, anger shouldn't simply well up on its own and for no real reason; instead, it was the proper response to phenomena or events only after they had been experienced and analyzed.

For instance, if you read a story about injustice, your anger concerning the injustice should stem from your understanding of justice and the nature of its abrogation, rather than simply bursting out on a gut level. It's ironic that far removed ages should hold such a seemingly rationalist view, while our own reason-worshipping era has enshrined emotion (defined simply as an automatic response of any kind to any phenomena and in any circumstance) as the most inherent mark of humanity.

Nowhere is this current attitude more obvious than in the realm of art. Art pieces (whether visual, verbal, or musical) are meant (or at least assumed) to evoke emotional responses before rational ones, if indeed rational responses are even desirable or possible. Hence, museum-grade art is often incomprehensible or highly offensive; if reason doesn't matter, art doesn't have to make sense, it just has to engender a response, preferably a violent or highly visceral one.

This has led to a stereotyping of the artist as an aesthete, one more attuned to his emotions than the common man in the mob, one more likely to be eccentric and socially edgy. So-called artists themselves have embraced this ludicrous caricature, taking on more and more affectation, engaging in scandal, creating art that appeals to the basest instincts in man while avoiding or outright ridiculing what is noble or rational.

In the old days, the artist scarcely mattered. What mattered were his creations, the compositions or paintings or poems he produced. What mattered were the ideas his work expressed, whether they revealed something about mankind, God, or the earth itself. The patron of the arts (whether an educated person or a common peasant) was expected to understand the ideas in the artwork, and to respond accordingly.

Without this order of response (reason leading to emotion), there is absolutely no reason for art. It becomes either mere entertainment or mere stimulus. Anything can drive us mad, or incite lust, or pique our curiosity, and we don't need songs or paintings to help us. We do need help, however, to reflect on the nature of injustice, or to discover it in ourselves, or to be motivated to fight it, and good art can help us do those things.

Of course it's the Gospel that primarily helps us do those things, but a work of art can only really be considered good if it illuminates or reinforces some aspect of the Gospel or of God's nature, and therefore good art serves the Gospel (even good art created by non-Christians). As the Gospel must first be understood rationally to be accepted and to transform the emotions, the mind, and behavior, so good art must first be pondered to be appreciated and to affect the emotions.

Art, then, is emotional, but only after it is rational. Music or books that aim directly at the emotions without taking into account the intellect are destined to be soon forgotten, to have perhaps a passing influence but (being superficial) to leave no lasting impression on society or individuals. Emotion born of thought is true emotion; anything else is merely a response, a knee-jerk reaction ultimately without value and without reason.