We know that there are many reasons people make art. Among them are desires to answer questions, to give expression to uncontainable (and indescribable) impulses, and to create a visually satisfying order out of disparate elements. As spectators we might look at the latter described art work and initially perceive nothing but disorder, especially in some modern and contemporary art. But if the work is successful to the artist, it is so because he has made a perfectly ordered expression of his idea or found a convincing answer to his question. An echo of the same phenomenon is found in Art Instression's theory of Component Correlation defined as the development by Art Instression of cognitive pathways that strengthen our ability to make orderly connections among various elements.

We know that when we bring our attention to a work of art and receive its Instress, Component Correlation takes place. The work of art itself is the physical manifestation of the artist's own process of making orderly connections among various elements, both psychic and physical. A transference of the harmony achieved by the artist takes place when you engage an art work substantially enough to receive the Instress. This transference is entirely defined by the degree of relationship that exists between the disparate elements the artist was attempting to work out and the various elements that are at odds within you. When the Instress of Art comes, part of what you feel is force exerted by the syncing of your internal disorder with the corresponding order achieved in the art work.

Most people are totally unaware that such a thing is taking place, but it does explain in part why you feel a kind of magnetic attraction to some art works and not others. It explains in part why some works resonate with you and some don't. Because a relationship exists between your state of mind at the time of observation and the artist's state of mind at the time of creation, the order achieved by the artist in the art work acts upon your brain to bring about greater order among your corresponding elements.

Component Correlation can occur when the questions or issues the artist is dealing with are apparent, such as the horrors of conflict and death expressed in Picasso's Guernica. Component Correlation also can occur when the motivations of the artist are completely hidden as in Rothko's Magenta, Black, Green on Orange. The point is that you don't have to know what issues the artist was working out in his art work and you don't even have to know exactly what issues of your own need working out. It seems to be the case that the issues themselves know who they are and when they recognize each other, on some enchanted evening, they call out to one another from across a crowded room.

Who can explain it?
Who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons,
Wise men never try.