How do terms such as tragic, ironic, moving, and harmonious describe artworks?

In the context of aesthetics and the philosophy of art, terms such as tragic, ironic, moving, and harmonious are categorized as aesthetic terms used to articulate an aesthetic impression or response to a work of art or natural object.12

These descriptors function in several ways:

• Affective and Emotional Qualities: Terms like moving are considered affective, describing the emotional impact a work has on the viewer. Other terms, such as sad, mournful, or wistful, denote specific emotional qualities perceived within the work.2
• Genre and Formal Features: Terms like tragic, ironic, and comic are often used to denote the expressive or representational content, formal features, or the overall artistic genre of a work.2
• Empirical Groupings: Historically, categories such as the tragic, comic, or heroic have been used to classify artistic works based on the feelings that form their content or motive. While these classifications are useful for organizing works, philosophers of art caution against using them as rigid "poetic laws" that dictate how a work must be composed.3
• Aesthetic Judgment: These terms are essential to the language of criticism. Critics employ them to justify their responses and to help others perceive the specific qualities of a work. Unlike scientific descriptions, these terms are often viewed as being grounded in the exercise of taste—a faculty of perception that allows for the evaluation of a work's merit and character.42

Ultimately, these descriptors help convey what is significant about a work, serving as a more precise and useful vocabulary for discussion than broader, more subjective terms like beautiful or ugly.1