These emotions may be of the everyday variety (such as fear, wonder or sympathy) or may be specific to aesthetic contexts.
In each of these respects, the emotion usually constitutes only a part of the overall aesthetic experience, but may play a more or less definitive function for that state.
The capacity of artworks to arouse emotions such as fear is a subject of philosophical and psychological research.
Despite the assertions of philosophers advocating the "absolute music" argument, the typical symphony-goer does interpret the notes and chords of the orchestra emotionally; the opening of a Romantic-era symphony, in which minor chords thunder over low bass notes, is often interpreted by layman listeners as an expression of sadness in music.
In the 19th century, a group of early Romantics including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and E. T. A. Hoffmann gave rise to the idea of what can be labeled as spiritual absolutism.