Aristotle

In his essay on art, Aristotle states many of the same principles and thoughts of his teacher Plato. But he seems to have a much more appreciation for art than Plato did. Plato believed that art did not have a place in society and the emotional aspect of it was detrimental to society and there should be much more reason and practical thinking in the world. In Aristotle's essay, he has a much more of a positive look on the world of art and its place in our lives. He believes its cathartic qualities is one of its main positive points. I absolutely believe this is true. As I said in a previous blog, I very much prefer a good good or a poem to a painting. Many would disagree but that is just my personal opinion. One of my favorite books is Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. It is a very emotionally intense book. The main character goes through every emotion possible within the human spectrum and still has this underlying sadness. We go through a year of high school with him and experience everything first hand. You feel for him, you want him to succeed and get upset when he fails. This feeling of fear and pity that Aristotle talked about is exactly what you go through. This art form has fulfilled Aristotle's musings. You feel these emotions without actually experiencing them. The things that happen in this book are awful and devastating and great and uplifting but if they were in our lives personally we would not see them in the same light. We would be offended and truly destroyed or too overwhelmed with happiness to truly see it in an engaged but outsider perspective. We live vicariously live through this person and we feel their pain but once we are done we feel as if we experienced an art form and enjoyed the experience. And this is cathartic, the "purging of emotions" that are not truly our own.

Is every art form cathartic, or is some art just offensive?