ABSTRACT
At each of its stages, the perception of art is accompanied by an affective state which one commonly calls the emotion of art, or artistic feeling, which ravishes the soul as a feast would gratify the appetite; it is unique. The vocabulary of affective psychology is inexact and uncertain, for the phenomena which it studies take place in a sort of obscure clarity in consciousness. Pleasure and pain are accompaniments of psychological activities, but a state of more or less mystery surrounds both. The love of truth afforded by science is a love of security. Doubt is a torment. The pleasure of art is really dependent upon the perception of art, and by it is furnished with the basis of stability. The aesthetic phenomenon resides in the perfect harmony between the work and the one who is impressed by it.
