Julia Werthimer wrote:

>Jon Johanning wrote in reply to Stirling Newberry:
>
>>On the other hand, one could argue (although I'm not sure I would want to
>>very confidently) that in our time we have developed ways of dealing with
>>such emotions, by therapy, etc., which work better for many people than
>>music and other arts, so that sufferers who once relied on the greatest
>>artists to help them deal with their suffering now tend to turn elsewhere.

Such as television evangelists and talk radio.

>I think this is looking at C19th art from too much of a C20th perspective.
>The whole notion of "therapy" to deal with emotions would have been utterly
>alien until the dawn of this century.  Nor would it have occured to people
>to look to the arts for comfort in unhappiness.  Rather, artists of the
>last century were expressing how it felt to live in that era, with all the
>assumptions attendant thereon - and this is what seems "over-emotional" to
>some when they encounter their art in our very different times.  IMHO.

I think Julia is going a bit too far, everything we ask for from art,
previous times and places did as well.  The difference is in the times,
and in what we allow our selves to do with art.  Many things we casually do
with art would ahve been forbidden in past eras, many forms of expression
which were acceptable in the past, are now forbidden.

They have their pruderies, and we have ours.

Stirling S Newberry
[log in to unmask]