The tragic Romeo and Juliet moves us, as reading the Psalms of David might move us, by taking us out of ourselves and our present concerns. We do not feel the emotions immediately as our own, but we do learn what it is like to experience those emotions: the longing and frustration of the lovers; the exuberance, faith, or despondency of the psalmist. And we expand our own ability to feel, and to judge the rightness or wrongness of our feelings. Beautiful art allows us, as Scruton says, “to understand dramatic events not theoretically, but by living through them in imagination and sympathy, as the fate of Demeter is lived through by the one who sings the Homeric hymn to her, or as the crucifixion of Christ is lived through by the choir and congregation during the St. Matthew Passion.”

Through this imaginative distance, art teaches us how to order our emotions, as Augustine might say. Art enables us to feel more truly and more deeply.

Liz Horst, "Art Appreciation is for the Everyday"