Whose emotions are we engaging with when we appreciate the emotional content of a work of art?

The Rothko murals at Tate Modern are lovely in their oppression, erotic in their cruelty. These are paintings that seem to exist on the skin inside an eyelid. They are what you imagine might be the last lights, the final flickers of colour that register in a mind closing down. Or at the end of the world. "Apocalyptic wallpaper" was a phrase thrown at Rothko's kind of painting as an insult. It is simply a description; the apocalypse is readable in these paintings like a pattern in wallpaper - abstract, pleasurable horror.

Link

The specification says:Art appears

inseparable from emotion, but whose emotions are

we engaging with when we appreciate the emotional

content of a work of art? (our own or the artists?)

Use the story of Rothko's life and work to attempt to answer this question.

Art as Truth or Emotion ?

Here's the event:

A raft was soon built; it was 20 metres in length and 7 metres in width, and was nicknamed "la Machine" by the crew. On 5 July, a gale developed and the Méduse showed signs of breaking up. Passengers and crew panicked and so the captain decided to immediately evacuate the frigate, with 146 men and one woman boarding the woefully unstable raft, towed by the boats of Méduse. The raft had few supplies and no method of steering or navigation. Much of its deck was under water. Seventeen men decided to stay on theMéduse, and the rest boarded the ship's longboats. The crew of the boats soon realised that towing the raft was impractical. They began to fear being overwhelmed by the desperate survivors on the raft. It was decided to cut the ropes, leaving the raft and its occupants to their fate.. The lifeboats, including the captain and Governor Schmaltz aboard, then sailed away to safety. Some landed immediately on the coast of Africa, most of the survivors making their way overland to Senegal though some died on the way.

On the raft, the situation deteriorated rapidly. Among the provisions were casks of wine instead of water. Fights broke out between the officers and passengers on one hand, and the sailors and soldiers on the other. On the first night adrift, 20 men were killed or committed suicide. Stormy weather threatened, and only the centre of the raft was secure. Dozens died either in fighting to get to the centre, or because they were washed overboard by the waves. Rations dwindled rapidly; by the fourth day there were only 67 left alive on the raft, and some resorted to cannibalism. On the eighth day, the fittest began throwing the weak and wounded overboard until only fifteen men remained, all of whom survived until their rescue on 17 July by Argus, which had accidentally encountered them

(link)

And here's the painting it inspired:


Gericault's 'Raft of The Medusa'

Does the value of the painting lie in it's truthfulness or it's emotional power?

Art is not about truth

“That art is not about TRUTH!!!”

It’s about PROPAGANDA!!!

prop⋅a⋅gan⋅da

–noun

1.	information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.

2.	the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.

3.	the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement.

The Medici family used Michelangelo’s David as a symbol of the victory of a cunning mind over brute strength. The statue stood outside the Town Hall in Florence as if to warn enemies and to show their authority over the Florentines.

Propaganda is when people try to convince you something is true. Michelangelo attempted to do this with his sculpture of David. The sculpture represents the defence of civil liberties embodied in the Florentine Republic, a state threatened by other more powerful states and by the domination of the Medici. (A business orientated family with traditions derived from patrons of the arts.)

Art is not about truth it is about more than that, for example it can be about propaganda. This is where art is used by people in power to convince people about things. For example Michelangelo’s David is actually a work of artistic propaganda. It was a statue commissioned by the Medici family to stand outside the Palazzo Della Signoria. The strength and muscle of David symbolises the strength and the hegemony of the Medici family themselves and to show their power among the people of Florence.

ART IS ABOUT ART - NOT ABOUT TRUTH

· Théophile Gautier was the first to adopt the phrase as a slogan. "Art for art's sake"

· "Art for art's sake" affirmed that art was valuable as art, that artistic pursuits were their own justification and that art did not need moral justification — and indeed, was allowed to be morally subversive.

·

· Art qua art… art is art, everything else is everything else.

ART COULD BE BAD FOR YOU

Plato said it could be seen as the youth of Athens 'feeding unhealthy pastures' ... so...ermh.... here's some pictures: