Why Caleb Is Wrong About Art

Caleb states, if I am not mistaken, that the emotions, sentiments and feelings provoked in a work of art makes it beautiful. Also he does not think it is necessary that emotions be present for art to be beautiful. In other words the craft and emotion can exist separately from each other and compliment each other when both utilized.

I implore you reader or listener to forgive Caleb for his folly, for he knows not what he says. As we all know it is a practice of the female gender to have all parts of their life connected in one way or another. They find themselves, if stuck in that rut of thinking long enough, unable to separate two parts of their lives. What Caleb has done is much like that. He took two of the largest parts of his life and connected them as though they belonged with each other. He did not want them apart for fear of having to back up why he likes terrible art (bless his heart).

Enough with the bulverisms as I am aware that I have not yet proven him wrong about his beliefs. Perhaps the female of the species is the more deadly and thus more correct for this mode of thought. It starts at Caleb's admittance that good art can function as such with evoking the emotions of the mind. All it is that I provide to the table is the proverbial "simplest explanation". Caleb complicates it with his precious connections that he so loves seeing in the Divine Comedy. Attributing emotion of truth as inherently beautiful creates problems or plot holes, if this were a story being told. It is unnecessary to beauty. Example: Premise. This human has hair. Conclusion. Therefore, anything with hair is a human. In our context it goes like this: Premise. This great art has evoked truthful emotion. Conclusion. Therefore, any art that has truthful emotion is great art. With reasoning it does not follow.

This idea of truthful emotion invites subjectivism with welcoming arms and a friendly hug. If one person holds a view and another the opposite view, which of them is correct in saying that their views of truth are beautiful? It may not make truth relative but it does make art relative. Both parties of opposite views are having emotional reactions to songs that support their beliefs; so how are they to decide which of them is not actually having an emotion evoked. One of them has to be wrong even though both of them claimed to "tear up" at the opposite truths. Again, Caleb has complicated a perfectly good definition to the point of relativism.

The definition I provide removes that problem. If you argue that high beauty equals complexity then we have no issues. It makes it a black and white problem. A man cannot argue that something simple is actually complex without sounding insane. The emotion is the mere bye- product of the high art. And I shall provide one last example.

Average Joe writes, "I have written a devotional poem!"

Average Joe's Devotional

God is good. God loves me.
He is very very great.
Jesus lived. I am free.
Me, he never will hate.

Compare this very truthful poem to the very truthful poem of Sir Walter Raleigh, of whom I am a fan.

The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage

No cause deferred, nor vain-spent journey ;
For there Christ is the King's Attorney,
Who pleads for all without degrees,
And he hath angels, but no fees.
And when the grand twelve-million jury
Of our sins, with direful fury,
'Gainst our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads his death, and then we live.

Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader,
Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder !
Thou giv'st salvation even for alms ;
Not with a bribèd lawyer's palms.
And this is my eternal plea
To him that made heaven, earth, and sea,
That, since my flesh must die so soon,
And want a head to dine next noon,