Aesthetics of Persuasion – Garphic Visualization of entreaties & Warnings by Artists, Graphic Designers, & Neighbors? ? are the visual equivalents of oooooh, aaaah, yikes, mmmmm ? ? What visual syntax corresponds to ..... ! ? + / ? How do artists express the emotions that are standardized by emoji Expletives abound in verbal language. Punctuation conveys the meanings and connotations of words in written language. Emoji are icons that provide short-hand expressions of emotion. All three not only indicate the existence of a feeling; they also communicate the intensity of that feeling. Significantly, these declarations of emotion exist independent of the actual object or event that is eliciting the response. Because they are all attachments onto a communication, these emotional indicators are capable of modifying any object or situation. The Aesthetics of Persuasion pays homage to the strategies that enable art to elicit emotion, capture attention, stimulate thought, and arouse curiosity. However, the mental states conveyed by works of art do not rely upon such standardized systems of communications. Instead of attaching pre-configured, predictable markers of emotion onto their paintings or sculptures to indicate the feelings they intend to convey, they imbed emotional significance within the images or objects they create. While expression is a cherished quality of visual art, this fertile creative territory is rarely explored. Aesthetics of Persuasion elicits the strategies of visual communication that have accounted for art’s power to stir the emotions throughout the ages. This exhibition links two familiar zones of the art experience: the stimulus (the artwork) and the response (the art viewer). The transmission that occurs between them is frequently overlooked in art analysis. Both unschooled and sophisticated individuals are likely to object designating one a “cause” and the other an “effect.” They might even agree on the same two reasons for this omission: • - Artistic intention is too elusive to be reduced to a means and an outcome. • - Responding to art is too personal and subjective to be analyzed. Intro by Linda Weintraub