Language is an extremely broad category. There are languages that have been undiscovered. There are languages only spoken by less than a hundred people. There are languages that only have a couple of expressions or a couple of words. But they are all still languages. Hence, I feel like art (music, paintings, dance) is a language, just a different type of language. It may not be phonetic. It may not have an alphabet. But can people hear them, feel them, and in return, express their responses? Yes.
In my opinion, art is (to put it at the least) an expression of emotions and expressions. I would say music and dance are the most linguistic art forms. Music, like most literal languages, can be heard, understood, felt, taught, and learned. People can learn music to express their emotions. People can hear this music and feel those emotions or other emotions. People can respond to this music, by playing a different piece or playing on a different instrument. Dance, likewise, can be taught, learned, expressed, and responded to. When people watch performances, these dancers are giving their bodies into the emotions in the dance. But at the same time, the audience can be amazed/moved/ disappointed by these performances. What’s most interesting is that music can dramatically add to the expression of dancing. Dancers can be moved by a song and then choreograph to describe the feelings they felt in the song. Hence, I feel like art can be a language if we open our definition of language.
Regarding the question of which is more important: the creator or the presenter? I feel like both are important. The creator creates to express an idea of his/her own. The presenter sees this and presents it over to express his/her interpretation. They can both become two different art pieces. For example, in dance, the dance and the creator can each present the same dance. However, the expressions within the dance can be different. Hence, I feel like what’s truly important is not the emotions presented at the time the dance is seen but the original motive or idea behind the dance. The question we should be asking is: What did the creator feel?
Music poses phonemes and structure like syntax, but it lacks words with repeated meaning, such as “Rock”, or “glass”, “faith”, “mother”, “Shoe”. Our difficulty in articulating “what is music” is in the fact that music does not express meanings that deflect non-emotional expressions. You might chose to look at it as a “Super-communication”, a form of human collective expression that does not require verbal use.