When you experience a great piece of art, you’re impressed.
When you see a painting that combines the realism of a photograph with the surrealism of a dream, you can’t help but stare, especially if it somehow mimics a vision you’ve once seen but not in reality.
When you hear a song that pinpoints the way you feel driving home from a tragedy, you can’t help but try to sing along, even without knowing the lyrics or even if there aren’t any lyrics to sing along to.
When you see a photograph of a child in southern Sudan stalked by a buzzard, you can’t help but feel the suffering, even if you don’t end up taking your own life the way the photographer did.
The art of art is that it influences or connects with your emotions. There’s no four-step method that always works for that. It’s more about finessing the emotion out of the work (or into the work), and even then, it’s so subjective. What might influence one person emotionally, what might resonate for that person, might not even register for another.
But that’s what makes art, art. That it’s emotional but never certain.
