Despite the very obvious differences between looking at Manet's Woman with a Parrot and listening to Elgar's Cello Concerto, both experiences provoke similar questions in the thoughtful aesthete: why does the painting seem to express reverie and the music, nostalgia? How do we experience the reverie and nostalgia in such works of art? Why do we find these experiences rewarding in similar ways? As our awareness of emotion in art, and our engagement with art's emotions, can make such a special contribution to our life, it is timely for a philosopher to seek to account for the nature and significance of the experience of art's emotions. Damien Freeman develops a new theory of emotion that is suitable for resolving key questions in aesthetics. He then reviews and evaluates three existing approaches to artistic expression, and proposes a new approach to the emotional experience of art that draws on the strengths of the existing approaches. Finally, he seeks to establish the ethical significance of this emotional experience of art for human flourishing. Freeman challenges the reader not only to consider how art engages with emotion, but how we should connect up our answers to questions concerning the nature and value of the experiences offered by works of art.

In 1797 Friedrich Schlegel wrote that "philosophy of art usually lacks one of two things: either the philosophy, or the art." This collection of essays contains both the philosophy and the art. It brings together an international team of leading philosophers to address diverse philosophical issues raised by recent works of art. Each essay engages with a specific artwork and explores the connection between the image and the philosophical content. Thirteen contemporary philosophers demonstrate how philosophy can aid interpretation of the work of ten contemporary artists, including: Jesse Prinz on John Currin Barry C. Smith and Edward Winters on Dexter Dalwood Lydia Goehr and Sam Rose on Tom de Freston Raymond Geuss on Adrian Ghenie and Chantal Joffe Hallvard Lillehammer on Paul Noble M. M. McCabe and Alexis Papazoglou on Ged Quinn Noel Carroll on Paula Rego Simon Blackburn and Jerrold Levinson on George Shaw Sondra Bacharach on Yue Minjun. The discussion ranges over ethical, political, psychological and religious concepts, such as irony, disgust, apathy, inequality, physiognomy and wonder, to historical experiences of war, Marx-inspired political movements and Thatcherism, and standard problems in the philosophy of art, such as expression, style, depiction and ontology of art, as well as major topics in art history, such as vanitas painting, photography, pornography, and Dadaism. Many of the contributors are distinguished in areas of philosophy other than aesthetics and are writing about art for the first time. All show how productive the engagement can be between philosophy, more generally, and art.

Despite the very obvious differences between looking at Manet's Woman with a Parrot and listening to Elgar's Cello Concerto, both experiences provoke similar questions in the thoughtful aesthete: why does the painting seem to express reverie and the music, nostalgia? How do we experience the reverie and nostalgia in such works of art? Why do we find these experiences rewarding in similar ways? As our awareness of emotion in art, and our engagement with art's emotions, can make such a special contribution to our life, it is timely for a philosopher to seek to account for the nature and significance of the experience of art's emotions. Damien Freeman develops a new theory of emotion that is suitable for resolving key questions in aesthetics. He then reviews and evaluates three existing approaches to artistic expression, and proposes a new approach to the emotional experience of art that draws on the strengths of the existing approaches. Finally, he seeks to establish the ethical significance of this emotional experience of art for human flourishing. Freeman challenges the reader not only to consider how art engages with emotion, but how we should connect up our answers to questions concerning the nature and value of the experiences offered by works of art.

In 1797 Friedrich Schlegel wrote that "philosophy of art usually lacks one of two things: either the philosophy, or the art." This collection of essays contains both the philosophy and the art. It brings together an international team of leading philosophers to address diverse philosophical issues raised by recent works of art. Each essay engages with a specific artwork and explores the connection between the image and the philosophical content. Thirteen contemporary philosophers demonstrate how philosophy can aid interpretation of the work of ten contemporary artists, including: Jesse Prinz on John Currin Barry C. Smith and Edward Winters on Dexter Dalwood Lydia Goehr and Sam Rose on Tom de Freston Raymond Geuss on Adrian Ghenie and Chantal Joffe Hallvard Lillehammer on Paul Noble M. M. McCabe and Alexis Papazoglou on Ged Quinn Noel Carroll on Paula Rego Simon Blackburn and Jerrold Levinson on George Shaw Sondra Bacharach on Yue Minjun. The discussion ranges over ethical, political, psychological and religious concepts, such as irony, disgust, apathy, inequality, physiognomy and wonder, to historical experiences of war, Marx-inspired political movements and Thatcherism, and standard problems in the philosophy of art, such as expression, style, depiction and ontology of art, as well as major topics in art history, such as vanitas painting, photography, pornography, and Dadaism. Many of the contributors are distinguished in areas of philosophy other than aesthetics and are writing about art for the first time. All show how productive the engagement can be between philosophy, more generally, and art.

How is that artistic works have the power to move the human heart? Why does Manet's Woman with a Parrot evoke reverie, and an Edward Elgar cello concerto, nostalgia? What is the value of such experiences? Art's Emotions is a reflective, thought-provoking exploration of the significance that experiencing emotion through art has upon our lives. Damien Freeman reviews and evaluates three traditional approaches to understanding artistic expression and moves on to develop a new theory of emotion that resolves key questions in aesthetics. In a novel philosophical project, Freeman also establishes the ethical importance of art in nurturing humans and helping them flourish. Art's Emotions challenges readers to consider not only how art engages with emotion, but also the ways in which art can answer fundamental questions about the value and nature of experience.