Art, creativity, and despair

[Primula Baggins]

Tolkien saw willful despair as a sin, and I'm not sure he wasn't right. It's wasteful, at the very least.

I'm not arguing for blind, unalterable hope, but being a responsible human being, to me, involves trying to increase the level of hope in the world. I can't imagine wanting to create a piece of art that did the opposite.

Edit: Cross-posted with Ax.

One role of the artist is to help people paths towards a more meaningful and, yes, happier life. That's not something that just anybody can do sucessfully, skilled or not.

I certainly think that's a possible role, although not one that has had as much currency as it might in recent years. It does raise the question as to whether the best way to help people is to give them examples of happy people as role models or unhappy people as cautionary tales (to be reductionist about it).

Either one works for me. I think there's a big difference between depicting a disastrous life that could have been avoided in ways the reader can perceive—a tragedy, in other words—and showing a disastrous life as inevitable, irrevocable human fate.

[yovargas]

You'll note I said one role, not the only, Ax. Either way, I think it is important and necessary and largely missing from the literature I encountered.

[Primula Baggins]

I don't see anything inherently harmful in hopeless art; honestly I don't think many people read enough of it to be harmed, and probably most already were inclined to bleakness. But for me the most brilliant writing imaginable still won't make such a trip worthwhile.

I don't think all art must have an uplifting purpose (and a lot of "art" that is created with that intent is not worth much: didactic, preachy, dull; see nineteenth-century literature for kids, or for that matter a lot of it for adults).

But I also agree with yov that it would be nice if the pendulum did begin to swing a little the other way.

[axordil]

and showing a disastrous life as inevitable, irrevocable human fate.

So, not a Camus fan, I take it? Or a Túrin fan?

[Primula Baggins]

Camus? I've never been drawn to try. Maybe I will someday. I should be better-read than I am. I keep coming up against life being short (and, for the past couple of decades, full of kids—I know you know what I mean, Ax!).

Túrin? Ticks me off. But it's a tragedy, not pure despair.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As soon as I split this thread off it turned to yet a different topic.

Sigh. At least it is an interesting one.

[Primula Baggins]

You did want members who like to discuss things—which does mean you end up with people who can turn a topic on a dime!

I'll change the title a bit, for now.

[yovargas]

So, not a Camus fan, I take it?

Ugh. A good friend insisted I read a collection of short stories from him. I was very curious. But more then any book I've ever read, it was seven stories saying the exact same thing and nothing else, as far as I could tell: Life sucks and it's all hopeless.

Thanks, Camus.

[axordil]

Oh, there's no one except maybe Beckett that can suck the fun out of a month faster than Camus. OTOH, he came up with one of the greatest positive quotes concerning the state of mankind too: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

The Myth of Sisyphus

[yovargas]

The friend who recommended it later said he read the stories as powerfully empowering cautionary tales. So, uh, different strokes, I guess. I'm not interested.



On the pre-topic, it is easy to see how someone who experiences reality radically different then the rest of us would choose to represent reality radically different then other artists.

[axordil]

Actually, it's about a two page essay, not fiction. It's painless by comparison to his fiction, honest.

Did van Gogh really see differently than most of us do? Some have proposed that he did, for neurological reasons. But portraying reality differently doesn't have to require experiencing it differently. Look at Seurat: he didn't see little dots. That's an academic exercise in color theory writ large (very large in the case of some canvases ).

[yovargas]

I didn't mean a literal seeing of reality.

[axordil]

In van Gogh's case, some people DO mean literally seeing differently, so you'll have to pardon my misinterpretation. But if it's just a matter of interpreting differently, then we're down to a matter of degree and not of kind, surely? Van Gogh's painting is idiosyncratic, but is it more so than Seurat's, or Monet's, or any number of other easily identifiable painters of the period?

[yovargas]

I'm talking about tendency, though. Of course there are no hard rules. But I imagine if you're out of your mind and think demons want to eat you, you might not be interested in making pictures of pretty trees.

[Primula Baggins]

Or you might make pictures where it looks as if the trees are full of demons.

[yovargas]

And of course, I can picture a demon tree too and try to draw it. But, skill being equal, I'm gonna bet on the crazy guy who actually believes doing it better.

[axordil]

And art done by people with serious mental illnesses, the kind involving hallucinations, often do just that.

But that's not what VG did. What he did seem to do in his best work was to bring an intensity of viewing to the canvas, one in which (and I apologize in advance for reaching here) no flower is more flowery than the one in the painting, no almond tree branch more almond tree branchy, no starry night more starry. While I'm open to the possibility that something organic may have had a finger in that (it reminds me of what can happen on low doses of LSD) it may just be that he could recover on canvas a particular focused visual experience he could have if he chose.

[Teremia]

Tolkien saw willful despair as a sin, and I'm not sure he wasn't right. It's wasteful, at the very least.

I wonder how much despair is "willful," actually. Remember that a lot of things look "willful" from the outside (depression, fatigue, addiction) that are not in fact entirely "willful" from the inside.

On the topic of creativity and mental suffering: surely one doesn't have to suffer terribly to be a great artist, but it still may be true that experience of mental suffering can inspire great art. For some people the creative drive may have sorrow and loss as its engine.

Clearly, you have to be undepressed enough to work a keyboard for misery to do you any creative good, though.

[Primula Baggins]

I was thinking of Denethor, and actually the word I should have used was "wilful" (obstinate, headstrong). I do know that despair is very often not a choice.

I also sense, though, that the real fashion for bleakness and hopelessness in literature leads to some people deliberately creating art that conveys hopelessness because in many quarters, that and only that is respected as art. Someone who does this is as false as any writer a hundred years ago churning out pulp about how following the strict path of virtue inevitably leads to wealth and happiness (because that's what sold and was praised as "great literature" then).

[vison]

I'm getting to this party a bit late.

An "artist" has something to say. A story to tell, either in words or pictures or music. Why does the artist have something to say?

Some artists want to entertain. I'm putting Prim in the Artist category because Prim belongs there. The impulse or desire or NEED to entertain creates art as certainly as does despair, don't you think? Yet this "entertainer" does not exist in a universe of Pink Unicorn Bunnies. This artist lives in the real world and has experienced some pain, some despair -- some of the usual human experience, in other words.

Some artists ARE in pain. For some it is nearly overwhelming, and to create art is to exorcise that pain, lessen it, or merely give it some meaning. I think some souls are born with "thin skin" and the ordinary pains and sorrows of life are almost too much for them; or they have been unfortunate and pain is their daily lot. These are the people who try many ways to kill their pain, but the best way, the most sure and healthy way, if they could do it, is to create and leave the laudanum or LSD or Bushmill's on the shelf. Cheap and easy, but fatal as Wormwood. Pour your heart out on paper or canvas or the strings of the guitar. At first they might think the creativity is enhanced or even caused by the chemicals they use, but I can't think of one who did not pay a terrible price in the end. Even my old favourite John O'Hara, who is on my mind today. He was a wallower, and he was a drinker, and it spoiled him. A certain amount of "Buck up, bucko, suck it up and get on with life" is necessary, but either they don't have anyone to tell them or they don't want to listen.

Some artists have an Idea. They are driven by the need to tell the world this Idea and maybe, in the process, change the world. This is maybe the toughest way to make Art, since it leads to Tracts, and Polemics, but it can be Art: Gulliver's Travels is Idea Art and do we deny it IS Art?

Maybe there are more kinds, but those 3 seem pretty basic to me. Moreover, in combination they cover the waterfront.

I write. Sometimes I write for "deliberate fun" and because I love to play with words. But sometimes I have a story to tell, and that story is meant to be Art, whether it makes it I don't care, it is Art I am after, since creating Art is a NEED and I can't rest until I try. Most of what I write now I could not have written twenty or thirty years ago, since I had not suffered enough nor learned enough. Since I had the misfortune of being born into a loving family and had to endure a pretty happy childhood, I had to find Pain elsewhere -- and I'm not entirely joking. Who was it said that all happy families are the same? Chekov? Someone like that. Well, it's partly true, isn't it?

How do we measure a person? My commonest way, and it may be harsh, is to see how she handles trouble and pain and sorrow. Pink Unicorn Bunny Universe is boring.