In Response to Nicole (Unfelt Emotions)

In Response to Nicole (Unfelt Emotions)

I am certainly interested by a contention that Nicole’s blogpost alludes to, which is, the idea of whether an artist can express an emotion that they have not felt before. After identifying this contention, Nicole stated that it is likely that the author must have experienced the emotion in which they are trying to express.

Taken prima facie, I would agree that the author must have experienced an emotion in order to experience it. How could they possibly know how to portray an emotion unless that have experienced it? However, after further consideration, it seems that there may be examples illustrating the opposite as the case. For example, couldn’t an artist possibly read about the characteristics of a particular emotion in a book, and using this information, be able to portray that emotion in a piece of art without actually experiencing that emotion themselves? This does seem entirely possible.

“But I think it may also be possible for the artist to be expressing an entirely different emotion through a subject matter that no one (or at least, almost no one) could have lived through themselves.”

I was intrigued by this statement made in this blogpost, but it also was slightly confusing. I take that Nicole meant that an author could portray an event (i.e. subject matter) that is extremely unlikely to occur in anyone’s life, but it still is able to express an emotion that others will understand. If this is the case then I agree with this statement. However, I would also like to point out that the viewers of that subject matter must at least understand what it occurring in this novel subject at least in some manner for them to be able to interpret the emotions. A the very least, the viewer must be able to recognize at least on component of this subject matter. For example, they would only need to see a human face in order to understand the emotional meaning of the work. But, if there was absolutely no component of the work that the viewer could recognize, then I do not think they would be able to decipher the emotional content.