Posts filed under ‘Art’
Delighting in Pessimism: Schopenhauer and “Melancholia”
An online acquaintance who watched the movie Melancholia remarked the other day how similar it seemed to be to the pessimistic worldview of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). In Melancholia, the main character is utterly depressed because it actually seems rational to be depressed and disgusted with humanity, and, so she thinks, it would be better for humanity not to exist. Just like Schopenhauer wrote: “We have not to be pleased but rather sorry about the existence of the world.” He wrote that “its nonexistence would be preferable to its existence,” because at bottom it “ought not to be.”
Cheery stuff, I know. In line with that, in the movie there is a planet called “Melancholia” about to collide with the earth, promising to make the wish for its nonexistence come true.
On the other hand, Schopenhauer did actually argue against suicide. If I remember correctly, his argument went something like this: You need to get to the point of not caring whether you live or die, and since you don’t care, why bother killing yourself? The problem of living will take care of itself soon enough. Why shoot yourself while you are already falling down a cliff? Just let yourself fall until you hit the ground.
I must confess, I’m not always in the mood for reading Schopenhauer. Although he can be quite amusing at times. In fact, he sometimes seems to take great delight in formulating his pessimism, seasoning it with a large dose of wit. He positively revels in his pessimism. And therein lies a paradox. He wishes to deny life, and yet in the act of formulating his denial he affirms life. Writing about his pessimism, clothing it in delightful language, becomes his way of escaping pessimism.
Though I haven’t yet seen the film, maybe the same could be said about Melancholia. The movie is said to be hauntingly beautiful, and isn’t creating a beautiful movie about life on earth being meaningless an oxymoron? Creating a movie, especially a beautiful one, is not an act that denies life; it is an act that affirms life. The appreciation of beauty has long been one of the major ways in which people have found meaning. If one is a true pessimist who doesn’t believe in meaning at all and wants everyone to not care about life, one should create destructive art—art that is ugly and fragmented and confusing, as some 20th century art has been.
Some philosophers, of course, have said that it is only by staring long and hard at the approaching planet Melancholia, so to speak, that we gain a true appreciation for life. Heidegger, for instance, thought that it is by deeply contemplating one’s own eternal non-being that one begins to understand what being is. And another Existentialist, Sartre, considered the approaching annihilation of oneself to be a kind of liberation. Since nothing mattered in the long run, you are free to choose what you want to do with life. Nietzsche, too, saw in existential despair the hope for creating a new humanity.
As different as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre were, they all shared an atheistic outlook on the world. And what I appreciate about them is that they did not gloss over what they perceived to be the consequences of their atheism. They looked long and hard at the approaching planet Melancholia, and they asked: Given that it’s all coming to nothing, what ought we to do? How shall we live? What choices shall we make?
Whether we are atheists or believers of some kind, it seems that many of the activities we occupy ourselves with are designed to distract us from these ultimate questions. If we watch movies like Melancholia at all, we are very happy to see a comedy again or joke with friends or do our work so that we don’t have to think about our approaching death.
On the other hand, is Heidegger right? Isn’t there something to be said about simply living in the moment, without pondering death? If you are an atheist, you don’t think your pondering will change your eternal fate anyway. So why not simply eat and drink and be merry, like David Hume, another atheist, was so good at doing? And if you are a believer, most religions seem to stress that taking care of your neighbor who is in need right now is more important than worrying about your particular rewards in the afterlife.
Given the atheistic presuppositions, who is right? Heidegger or Hume? Or neither?
Cheers.
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Hand-Drawn Video: Explaining Einstein (lots of fun!)
I couldn’t resist indulging my creative self during the Christmas break, starting on a hand-drawn video that explains Einstein’s Special Relativity. It will probably take a while to complete it, but I’m done with the first quarter now. Here it is, a work in progress:
Understanding the Art and Architecture of the Middle Ages
This is a course by The Teaching Company (TTC) on discovering the Middle Ages. Since TTC does not offer the course anymore, I am making it available on YouTube. The speakers are Ronald Herzman and William Cook.
Finally Saw the Book of Kells
I’ve been living in Ireland for a year and a half now, but only this week did I finally go see the Book of Kells at Trinity College in Dublin. They constantly change the pages on display. This was one of them on display while I was there. It shows John the Evangelist. The drawing is incredibly intricate.
Baroque: Music, Art and Architecture an Expression of a Scientific Worldview?
As someone who is as much interested in art, music, literature, and architecture as I am in philosophy and science, I find it interesting to see the scientific outlook of Bacon, Galileo, and Newton reflected closely in the Baroque style of the 17th century.
Baroque was characterized by unprecedented complexity built upon a foundation of complete order, balance, harmony, and logic—just like the pioneers of modern science attempted to build their understanding of all the complexity in the world on a scientific system of complete order, balance, harmony, and logic.
So if you want to know what the thoughts of Bacon, Galileo, and Newton sounded like, listen to Bach. Or if you want to know what they looked like, go see Versailles.
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Nietzsche: Modern Architecture “Masklike”
Nietzsche is often quoted on religion, ethics and the nature of man (and woman), but not often on architecture. Too bad, because I really liked his take on architecture in Human, all too Human, aphorism 218:
We have outgrown the symbolism of lines and figures, as we have grown unaccustomed to the tonal effects of rhetoric, no longer having sucked in this kind of cultural mother’s milk from the first moment of life. Originally everything about a Greek or Christian building meant something, and in reference to a higher order of things. This atmosphere of inexhaustible meaningfulness hung about the building like a magic veil. Beauty entered the system only secondarily, impairing the basic feeling of uncanny sublimity, of sanctification by magic or the gods’ nearness. At the most, beauty tempered the dread —but this dread was the prerequisite everywhere.
What does the beauty of a building mean to us now? The same as the beautiful face of a mindless woman: something masklike.
Easter: A Painting
It’s Easter. That reminds me of a painting I did years ago as a teenager. It’s done with a layer of oil crayons and then a black colored pencil on top.
Teddy Bears in Watercolor
I did these watercolor paintings of teddy bears a number of years ago to decorate the room of our newborn. Later I turned the pictures into a book.
Modern Art? Let’s Re-Name it “Psychoanalytical Art”
As I said in my last post, modern art shouldn’t be seen primarily as an expression of a certain epoch. That’s why I suggest we call it Psychoanalytical Art instead.
Doesn’t modern art often do what psychoanalysis tries to do? It turns us inside out, taking our entrails, so to speak, and putting them up for us to see. And that’s a good thing to do sometimes, to shine the light on the creepy crawlers in the darkness of our being. It’s a good thing to an extent, as a recognition of our whole being, but the darkness alone is not our whole being. There is an outside part too. We have skin as well as entrails. We are meant to bathe in the sun of the outside world and not just dig in the darkness of our own being.
However, admitting what is lurking in the darkness of ourselves is vital, because—that’s at least what Freud said—growing up means to learn the art of suppression, playing those instruments called “restraint” and “inhibition.”
When we were babies, we suppressed nothing. But we learned to suppress our desires, since society would not be possible without such suppression.
And yet, the things we suppress are still there. They are still part of who we are. And it is those hidden “entrails” of our being that modern art turns inside out, just like a psychoanalyst attempts to do. It brings the subconscious—dark, wild, self-centered, violent, desirous—to the light of consciousness.
Seeing the result can be alarming, even horrifying. But it is a good alarm, a good horror. One that makes us know ourselves.
That’s why I propose to re-name modern art “Psychoanalytical Art.” It shouldn’t be seen as something contemporary, new, reflecting our current developments, but as a permanent art style.
Contemporary art shouldn’t be restricted to Psychoanalytical Art, and at the same time everyone should recognize the value of Psychoanalytical Art. Through it, we see our subconscious on the canvas—and that’s the safest place for it. How much better it is to commit a dark, violent, confusing, sub-rational act on a canvas than in actuality.
And how healthily humbling it is for a saint to look at such a canvas and say, “I, too, have these things on the inside of me. I’ve only learned to suppress them. I’ve learned to rise above them, but they might catch up with me anytime. They are still there, and subconsciously they probably still drive a lot of what I do.”
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P.S.: Freud’s concept of suppression was not the last word spoken on the topic. It is certainly not the only way to view our development from infancy to adulthood, but you can’t dismiss it out of hand either.
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