I begin here with an explanation of representational visual art, move to abstract visual art and then on to my explanation of how music fits into this schema. With mimetic visual art, the most ready example being painting of course, one can view the canvas and identify certain representations of reality and one can identify the representations of the relations between those objects. In Rose Bonheur's Horse Fair , for example, we can easily identify the relative positions of the horses in the painting. We do not believe anything, per se , about the animals, however. We know that it is a painting and we know that the situation is not existent.
Existential beliefs are beliefs that a situation actually exists.
Evaluative beliefs are beliefs about a situation that concern a set of circumstances within a situation. With Horse Fair , I do not believe that this particular situation exists, but I do have an evaluative belief that there are horses trotting around the picture. We deal here in the fictitious realm of the characters and the corresponding emotions we have are analogously fictitious. The emotions thus evoked cannot be justified because they lack an existent intentional object and corresponding belief. This in no way detracts from the painting itself, of course, nor the experience.