Honors College Art & Science of Emotions Fall 2017 (1:20 p.m.) Happiness Group Journal | Page 22

The Importance of Art
Throughout the Fall 2017
semester, we gained a
considerable amount of
knowledge regarding both the
artistic and scientific aspects of
emotions. The teachings of
philosophers such as Plato, Sartre,
Santideva, Kant, and Aristotle
were utilized in order to reach an
abstract awareness of love, hate,
happiness, sadness, and fear. In
addition, physiological readings
allowed a more rooted,
fact-based understanding.
Discussions provided a medium in
which we could define these
emotions. Class discussions on
happiness produced the
revelation that our happiness is
often hindered by society’s views
on what we need to do, rather
than what we want to do. We
realized that there are numerous
ways that society causes us to feel
unhappy. In order to
demonstrate this, we created a
painting that depicted several of
the examples. When detailing the
purpose of the painting, we
explored the concepts of sublime
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