Isn't that a retrospective analysis though? I mean don't you think that at the time people liked his work and responded emotionally to it? That like a ripple in a pond more people got to see and like the work first and later began to analyse and establish connections between his style and other previous and indeed subsequent styles?
Some people liked his work. Remember that he's working in an environment where 20-30 years of impressionism have already changed the Paris art establishment. And, while he may have serious mental health issues, his brother is an art dealer. He has exhibitions during his lifetime, but his work isn't really picked up (partly why he starts studying colour). Post-impressionist artists and critics continue to push his work and smaller galleries/dealers keep it going, but it's not a case of a sort of ripple of instinctive appreciation - they explain why they like it, they explain it (see
Aurier's essay on him).
This is not to say that you can't have an immediate, visceral reaction to an artwork. However that reaction is to some extent conditioned. We live in an environment where Van Gogh is so much a part of life that he will be one of the first paintings you see, one of the first you learn about. A couple of examples by way of illustration: I had a probably somewhat mediocre painting of a ship on my wall for most of my childhood... It's a schooner on wooden boards, probably some family link I suppose. I really like that painting. I don't think it's particularly good (I'm no expert on paintings of schooners on wooden boards), but it has always been there - it was one of the first pieces of art I saw. The same goes for a painting of a sheep that my mum's had as long as I can remember (that actually is quite good - sort of impressionist thing of the head - the eye is great). These are not paintings that are in any way famous, but they are paintings that I might otherwise walk past in any gallery.
Your argument was that you can love Van Gogh instinctively, without knowing anything about him whereas abstract art requires explanation. My issue with that is that you can't know how you would react to Van Gogh if you didn't have a very specific cultural background. Your world is one where the ideas of Van Gogh have been accepted, and where his paintings can form part of the fabric of normal life. As a child seeing a very specific piece of his entire output - Bedroom in Arles - there are some things that will stand out. I think the bright simplicity of the scene is something that a child will have an instinctive appreciation for, colours and life etc. Especially when contrasted with the other kinds of art people put on there walls. A lot of his work wouldn't provoke that reaction - not his darker stuff, not his take on Japanese woodcuts etc. There are many other works by other painters that might give the same reaction, but they are not hanging on your aunt's wall.
You C&P'd some artist quotations upthread, about the importance of emotion in art. More than half of those artists are painters who work with varying degrees of abstraction. They are not writing lengthy justifications for their art and I'm willing to bet that if you pop over to the Tate modern tomorrow for a look at Malevich there you won't find a lengthy explanation justifying the positioning of specific forms. You'll get a general summary giving the social context at the time; explaining attitudes to art in pre/early-revolutionary Russia and you'll get a brief description of what suprematism is - i.e filling in a cultural backdrop that you do not have. I think the same goes for Pollock, Rothko and many others.
My grandmother was a modernist architect, worked for Goldfinger. One of her friends was a guy called HT Cadbury-Brown (designed the RCA, worked on festival of Britain) and I used to go to his house quite a lot when visiting her and after she died. The art he had on his walls included everything from woodcuts of Palladian building plans to posters from various exhibitions. By the door he had a print of a Matisse cut-out. I loved that picture - one of the very simple blue and white ones. That primacy of one colour, the simplicity of it but the impression of motion and vitality. This was not an intellectual reaction, it was based on a combination of context and the ability of the artist.
In summary what I am saying is that you are wrong when you say you can't have an emotional reaction to modern art. That your reaction to Van Gogh is partly conditioned by the social context he is set in. The two relate because not many people are exposed to modern art in the same way that they are to Van Gogh. It takes some level of engagement to see what the artist is trying to achieve. Someone born in Kyoto might take one look at Van Gogh painting Japanese woodcuts and say 'this guy really doesn't understand art' - it requires some level of commitment to understand the context that the painter is working in. In the case of Van Gogh that context is so much a part of your life that you saw his work when you were 5. I am not talking about the kind of elaborate justifications you might see today (very much in two minds about that), just taking a few small steps to think about what context the painter is working in. Art is not made to be directly visually appealing, it's there to present some kind of interpretation. You might as well write off Goya because his figures are ugly.
