Art of feeling: why we should celebrate anger
There is an art to anger. From a furious Christ pummelling merchants in a 14th-Century fresco by Giotto to a window-smashing spree in Beyoncé’s 2016 music video Hold Up, cultural history is punctuated with punchy images that are more than a little hot under the collar. Such works see wrath and rage not as the shameful antitheses of composure and control but as raw and vital in comprehending who we are. Rarely as celebrated or adored as works devoted to love and affection, these studies in abject aggression are no less profound in their meditation on the full palette of pigments with which we paint ourselves into being. Anger may not be angelic, but it is human and deserves some respect.
