How convincing is the claim that we value art because it is an act of emotional communication between artist and audience?

There are many objections to the view that we value art because it successfully conveys and communicates emotions felt by the artist. For example, Collingwood, held the view that an artist may not always know the emotions they are expressing at the time of creation. When composing music, the musician will search for a chord or melody that portrays their mood in order to complete the song. This has shown that they are actively searching for the right emotion, and did not set out to communicate that exact emotion at the start, which would undermine theory. I also feel that some artwork does not portray an emotion at all, and that it was not the intention of the artist to do so.

        Another objection is that it is common for an artist to express emotions they do not feel. Great examples of this scenario are novels. Within novels (which are still works of art), the author creates many different characters, and can convincingly portray different emotions for them all, many of which they may never have personally experienced. If an artist has not experienced the emotion, then they cannot have set out to communicate this emotion, therefore again undermining the claim that we value because it is an act of emotional communication between artist and audience. On the other hand, despite not experiencing an emotion first hand, is still communicating with the audience by allowing the audience to understand what the art is trying to depict.

        Collingwood and Croce, two idealist philosophers, would disagree with the idea that an artist does not have to feel the emotions expressed by the art. Some pieces of art are purposefully created to draw attention to an artist, or even as a commissioned job; the artist has intentionally planned the arousal of emotion in the audience. Collingwood and Croce, would here say that the artist is merely a craftsmen, rather than an artist. For example, songwriters have developed ways of producing evocative music that will sell more records, despite never having experienced the intended emotions.

A way of by-passing the trouble of attempting to understand of what the artist is trying to express, would be to discover the intentions of the artist at the time of creation. If we could do this then surely our ability to assess the quality of the work would improve? Wimsatt and Beardsley, two critics, would disagree. They have revealed that when assessing a work of art, there are 3 kinds of evidence; internal evidence are the facts contained within the art itself, external evidence includes public comments about the work and why it was created, and finally contextual evidence refers to what we might infer from their other works or art. However even if we try to reveal the artist’s intentions through their other pieces of art, and discussions with others about the intentions, we can never actually know them, so therefore we have no other option but to only asses work based on its ‘internal evidence’, when the art is in isolation.

        I agree with this view because when trying to discover the artists intentions, looking at their other artwork is useless, because the artist will obviously have different intentions for each piece. I feel that artwork should be judged by a clear unclouded mind, that has no previous knowledge of the artist, then if an emotions are successfully communicated, the artwork could be said to be valuable.

To conclude, I feel that the claim ‘we value art because it is an act of emotion communication between artist and audience’ is not convincing. Even if a piece of art communicates the emotion that was intended by the artist, it may provoke an emotional response in the audience that is not liked or desired, therefore they would not value the art. I think that valuing art should be based on numerous things, not based wholly on how well it communicates an emotion.