Is art simply a response to an unfulfilled need in society or does it have its own benefit? What I mean by this is it seems in Freud’s work that if people were able to talk to somebody about their desires that they would no longer need to make or view art. If I have repressed desires and I talk to say my psychologist about them then they are expressed. I would no longer need art as a way to do so. This seems to suggest that art is created because of people’s flaws. If people were open, expressive and happy than they would not create art. It does seem that people often feel a connection to works of art that makes them really like them even though they cannot express why. This inexpressible connection does fit Freud’s theory of art quite well. It also fits in a way with Tolstoy’s theory. Art is communicating the same repressed thoughts to different audiences when they enjoy it. The writer of a work of fiction is communicating our daydreams which we need but are unwilling to express, “the true enjoyment of literature proceeds from the release of tension in our minds. Perhaps much that brings about this result consists in the writer’s putting us into a position in which we can enjoy our own day-dreams without reproach or shame” (Freud 116). The repression then is the same among people and we utilize the language of art to communicate it.
Does this mean that artists are particularly unhappy people? Are there unfulfilled desires so strong that they have to express them in a way that non artists do not? If people are really good artists does that mean that they have repressed desires that are desperately trying to get out more than other peoples or does it mean that their repressed desires are so common that tons of people can relate to them?
I think that with respect to Frued's belief's within art, there is more to the concept of releasing repressed motions than he lets on to or even understood himself.
ReplyDeleteThe primary reason I bring this up is that repressed emotion very specifically does not have to be a bad thing. An artistic person may experience something that derives good or bad emotions within them to which they can focus into the creation of a happy image. The thing that makes this most interesting is that to the artist this may be used simply as a cathartic exercise, but with the successful creation of the art it can be of monetary or even simply just emotional value to another human being.
I think that artists being unhappy people is a fairly strong stereotype about artists because the act and experience in creating art is so strong as a cathartic exercise. Typically I would say that the greater portion of morbid artists are artists that have expended to much into their work / focus too long on something that is very difficult to finish. The best example of this being someone who has writer's block; they cannot think of any new ideas and seem to have blown their creativity in the past until something triggers them to do what they are good at successfully again.