Emotionalism theory is an aesthetic and critical theory of art. This theory highlights the significant qualities of an artwork, because the most essential thing about a work of art is the vivid communication of a strong feeling of moods, feelings, and ideas the artist wants the viewer to see the message contained within the artwork, and also the empathy, expressionism, formalism, imitationalism, kitsch, sentimentality of the viewers (citation).
An emotionalist is not concerned about the measure of the value of a painting based on how real the image looks, they are not also concerned in how an artist used the elements and principles of art to create balance, form, or color harmony, and emotionalist are also not overwhelmed by the amount of time and technical skill that goes into a work of art, but an emotionalist critics require that a work of art must get a response from others, because an emotionalist would only attribute success and value to a work of art that awakens feelings, moods, and emotions in the viewer. A good emotionalist artwork will succeed in getting the artist’s message across. Pieces of artwork will depict characters showing emotions (citation).
An emotionalism artwork can either be alarming, interesting, realistic or acquire an abstract outlook, but the artwork will try to provoke you into action or call for your attention to any issue of concern according to the hypothesize of this theory. The main objective of the artwork is to get the viewer’s attention in a dramatic way and to impact the viewer’s emotions. Nevertheless, an artwork will be classified as an emotionalist only if the emotion being expressed was the main purpose of the artwork (citation).