IN THE VISUAL ARTS, TRAITS WHICH STRESS THE Expression of feeling occur so often that we refer to a "style of emotion." Very often, an artist cannot "speak" in any other language. Van Gogh and Soutine were such men: their pictures of people, flowers, trees, or even chairs seem to be bursting with intensity. For such artists, what matters most is not accuracy or the measured expression of order; rather, the communication of anxiety, pity, or rage—any emotion—takes precedence over everything else.
If we say that emotion is important to a certain kind of artist, do we mean the emotion he feels or his arousal of emotion in others? The reference might be to both. Usually, however, we have only a secondary interest in the artist's feelings; we are mainly concerned with the way art objects are responsible for our responses. Sometimes the language used by critics to describe the emotional impact of a work gives the impression that the artist experienced the same feelings in advance of creating it. In fact, he may or may not have. And it is not our purpose to find out. Certain theories of art criticism assume that artistic excellence depends on whether the viewer is convinced that the artist truly experienced the emotions we see in his work. The study of style, however, focuses more sharply on the art object than on the artist's behavior. When examining a work of art, the viewer ought to be more interested in his own biography and his own emotions than in those of the artist. He should ask, "Does the work convince me of the reality of the world it attempts to create?" rather than, "Did the artist really feel the emotions portrayed here?"
There are differences of opinion about what constitutes the "expression of emotion" in art. The view taken here is that emotions are the names we give to neuromuscular reactions - feelings - which have been triggered by the organization of elements in an art object. The energy for such feelings comes from the viewer, but the feelings are organized by the work of art. Consequently, emotions are caused and shaped by the art object, they are portrayed in it.
There are differences within the style of emotion. That is, works of art have the capacity to arouse a range of feelings and dispositions in viewers—all of which are emotional but differing in their content. It is obvious that we can be elated by one work and depressed by another. Each particular emotional response may be caused by the subject matter or theme of the work; or it may be due to the type of aesthetic "signal" the work transmits. For example, abstract art often has no apparent subject matter, yet it can cause complex emotional responses. Something in the visual organization of abstract works must be responsible for these reactions. Consequently, we shall be dealing in this chapter with two sources of emotion in works of art: thematic or subject-matter sources, and organizational or design sources.
The style of emotion refers to any means of arousing feelings in a viewer. Its most stirring examples reveal the mutual influence of theme and design. Examples might be seen in the Side of Beef by Chaim Soutine and The Bat by Ger-maine Richier (1904-1959). Both subjects are distasteful, and the organization of forms in each case reinforces our normal feelings of revulsion —feelings clustered around the idea of slaughter, or attack by a hideous creature. On the other hand, Henry Moore's Falling Warrior deals with killing, too, but the simplification of forms and freezing of movement divest the sculpture of any gory qualities the theme would be expected to have. In other words, what we know about Moore's subject does not interfere with the formal order of his sculpture. But the carcass by Soutine dramatizes the mutilated character of eviscerated forms which once housed organic life. The carcass records the slaughter of a beast, not the slaying of a hero.
Richier's bat, with its webbed limbs radiating from a mammalian trunk, strikes a note of primeval terror because of some instinctive fear it arouses in us. Its resemblance to the human is stressed by the artist to arouse mixed emotions— emotions of dread and recognition. In this case, design is assisted by the manipulation of symbolic meanings to mount an assault on the viewer's feelings.
Themes of violence and an interest in mutilated forms are not uncommon features of the style of emotion today. However, we are not concerned with discovering whether we like or dislike these style features. We examine this art to gain insight into the world we live in. If art reflects the times, it is worth attention whether we enjoy it or not. The style of emotion should help us to see what it is about life in the twentieth century that leads to the expression of terror and despair—or hopefully the expression of joy.
