and there was no sunlight

I think Tolstoy might have had the right idea, saying that art is nothing but pure emotion. The meaning hidden in the piece - because there is always meaning - isn't some complicated thesis statement that takes half a page to record, but an idea that is impossible to capture in print. Even literature - a collection of print - conveys this; the words are built up around the nameless idea of whatever emotion the writer felt that he wanted his readers to feel. The emotion isn't something that can be felt simple by saying the name of the emotion. Hearing the words "happy" or "sad" or "angry" don't make anyone happy or sad. But a painting painted to capture happiness, or a book written to capture sadness, or a musical piece composed to capture anger, does make people happy and sad and angry. Human emotions are complicated things that are not affected by mere speech. We pride ourselves on the fact that we are complicated beings with more depth than most. We can read a book and analyze it and grasp some meaning, some feeling, from it, whether it be the right one or not. But if we spend so much time thinking about what the emotion behind a piece is - what the artist really wanted us to feel - do we lose some key point in the discovering process? Does trying so hard to feel what the artist felt when they decided to create the piece keep us from fully appreciating and understanding a work of art? Or can we never really appreciate it until we understand what the artist wanted of us? In other words, can we derive our own meaning from things, or must we understand what the artist wanted us to before we can appreciate a work of art?