Abstract artwork on suffering

Jerrold Levinson is Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland College Park He is particularly noted for his work on the aesthetics of music as well as for his search for meaning and ontology in film art and humour. Book suffering art gladly pdf download A collection of newly composed essays some with a historical focus and some with a contemporary focus which addresses the problem of explaining the appeal of artworks whose appreciation entails negative or difficult emotions on the appreciator s part what has traditionally been known as the paradox of tragedy Suffering Art Gladly The Paradox of Negative Emotion in ArtNo progress made on the paradox here I m afraid in fact I found most of the chapters completely useless and some even surprisingly bad like the last one that conflates the challenge of explaining why we enjoy difficult emotions in art with why some people like to pretend to enjoy pseudo art like the 8 hour drudgery of sitting through Warhol s Empire it is because of the conspicuous leisure snob value in doing so Might be worth a read for Anna Christina Ribeiros essay Hardcover