What does art do?

We are all familiar with the fact that art can do many things: it can inspire, enlighten, send shivers up the spine, delight, anger, frighten; it can make one think, feel, shake one's head in astonishment, cry, laugh out loud; it can evoke feelings of triumph, melancholy, light-heartedness, serenity, excitement, boredom, rightness, anxiety, joy, sorrow. Yet according to philosopher Ayn Rand the fundamental thing that art does is this:

Art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were [the objects of perception]. (Rand 1975, 20)

- Peter Saint-Andre