Wretched Beauty: Visualizing the Fragile Edge of Emotion
Abstract
“Fiery aspects of thought and feeling that initially compel the artistic voyage commonly carry with them the capacity for vastly darker moods, grimmer energies, bouts of ‘madness’, mercurial, brooding, they form the common view of the artistic temperament. Poetic or artistic genius, when infused with these fitful and inconstant moods, can become a powerful crucible for imagination and experience.” Kay Redfield Jamison
This paper examines evidence of the relationship between the melancholic mental state and the creative perspective, influenced by my subjective experience of the edge of emotional fragility. Regarded as the ‘artistic temperament’, this state will be discussed through psychological and philosophical theories, art historical sources, specifically from Romanticism and Abstract Expressionism, and contemporary artists Adrian Ghenie, Yayoi Kusama and Cecily Brennan. These artists express depression and aspects of melancholia through various mediums, and are here investigated to demonstrate the influence this mental state has had upon their work. These convergences of expression through subject matter, color, fragmentation of human forms and perceptual distortion will be researched as evidence of altered states of consciousness.
My practice involving painting as a response to emotional states related to depression will also be explored through an autobiographical method. This is examined by using practice based research as a tool to explore how depression has impacted upon my creative process, both physically and emotionally. The aim of this thesis is to show how definite links between experiencing depression may help or hinder creative endeavors.
Introduction
Depression impacts upon the artistic process by magnifying emotion, giving the artist a deeper knowledge and insight into humanity by experiencing extreme ranges of thoughts through a dark, despairing state of mind. By applying these feelings into a form of representation artists are able to present a parallel universe of reality expressed as a visual reaction. The term depression as it relates to this thesis explores the historical idea of melancholia as the artistic temperament of ruminating, yet still despairing sadness, manic depression which involves highly creative periods of hypomania and extreme lows of mental devastation, and simply depression as an unrelenting, hopeless descent into a black abyss. My own experience with depression along with an interest in translating emotions felt in the various states of consciousness visualized through paint, has led me to explore this topic with both a strong sense of interest combined with personal understanding.
The first chapter covers sources providing a strong basis for theoretical and psychological understanding of the interrelationship of depression and the artistic temperament. Chapter two addresses artistic temperament and its association with melancholia within significantly historical lineage, beginning with Greek physician Hippocrates in the 5th century BC. This view of the melancholic artist in western history from the ancient Greeks is examined through ages especially significant regarding the artistic temperament, including the Renaissance, Romanticism and Abstract Expressionism. Reinforcing this idea are examples of artists and how their works display melancholic tendencies, including Francisco de Goya, Theodore Géricault, Käthe Kollwitz, Jackson Pollock and Alberto Giacometti. Chapter three examines contemporary artists expressing psychological aspects of depression including painter Adrian Ghenie, writers Susanna
Kaysen and Rachel Reiland, and multimedia artists Yayoi Kusama and Cecily Brennan. This thesis will argue that depression, or melancholia, provides an emotional insight for artists attainable only through the experience itself.
Chapter 1: Psychoanalytical Views of the Artistic Temperament
Chapter 2: Historical Aspects of Melancholia
Chapter 3: Contemporary Artists Conveying Depression
Conclusion
Artistic temperament is the emotional intensity of the highs and lows experienced by artists which assist in the creation of unique vision. Throughout this thesis, evidence has been presented through a variety of interpretive means that reinforces this theory, including psychoanalytical and philosophical ideologies, an art historical context, discussion of artists and their work and my comprehension of experience within my artistic process. This artistic temperament has held true throughout historical times and into the contemporary field, providing various ways of visualizing emotion and expressing it to form comprehensive links between depression and the artistic process. This interconnection has reinforced and made almost tangible the part of the mind accessible only through psychological states of consciousness that exist in states of depression.
Submitted in part fulfillment of the degree of Master of Fine Art of the National University of Ireland Galway, 2013
Tutor: Martina Cleary
Abstract
“Fiery aspects of thought and feeling that initially compel the artistic voyage commonly carry with them the capacity for vastly darker moods, grimmer energies, bouts of ‘madness’, mercurial, brooding, they form the common view of the artistic temperament. Poetic or artistic genius, when infused with these fitful and inconstant moods, can become a powerful crucible for imagination and experience.” Kay Redfield Jamison
This paper examines evidence of the relationship between the melancholic mental state and the creative perspective, influenced by my subjective experience of the edge of emotional fragility. Regarded as the ‘artistic temperament’, this state will be discussed through psychological and philosophical theories, art historical sources, specifically from Romanticism and Abstract Expressionism, and contemporary artists Adrian Ghenie, Yayoi Kusama and Cecily Brennan. These artists express depression and aspects of melancholia through various mediums, and are here investigated to demonstrate the influence this mental state has had upon their work. These convergences of expression through subject matter, color, fragmentation of human forms and perceptual distortion will be researched as evidence of altered states of consciousness.
My practice involving painting as a response to emotional states related to depression will also be explored through an autobiographical method. This is examined by using practice based research as a tool to explore how depression has impacted upon my creative process, both physically and emotionally. The aim of this thesis is to show how definite links between experiencing depression may help or hinder creative endeavors.
Introduction
Depression impacts upon the artistic process by magnifying emotion, giving the artist a deeper knowledge and insight into humanity by experiencing extreme ranges of thoughts through a dark, despairing state of mind. By applying these feelings into a form of representation artists are able to present a parallel universe of reality expressed as a visual reaction. The term depression as it relates to this thesis explores the historical idea of melancholia as the artistic temperament of ruminating, yet still despairing sadness, manic depression which involves highly creative periods of hypomania and extreme lows of mental devastation, and simply depression as an unrelenting, hopeless descent into a black abyss. My own experience with depression along with an interest in translating emotions felt in the various states of consciousness visualized through paint, has led me to explore this topic with both a strong sense of interest combined with personal understanding.
The first chapter covers sources providing a strong basis for theoretical and psychological understanding of the interrelationship of depression and the artistic temperament. Chapter two addresses artistic temperament and its association with melancholia within significantly historical lineage, beginning with Greek physician Hippocrates in the 5th century BC. This view of the melancholic artist in western history from the ancient Greeks is examined through ages especially significant regarding the artistic temperament, including the Renaissance, Romanticism and Abstract Expressionism. Reinforcing this idea are examples of artists and how their works display melancholic tendencies, including Francisco de Goya, Theodore Géricault, Käthe Kollwitz, Jackson Pollock and Alberto Giacometti. Chapter three examines contemporary artists expressing psychological aspects of depression including painter Adrian Ghenie, writers Susanna
Kaysen and Rachel Reiland, and multimedia artists Yayoi Kusama and Cecily Brennan. This thesis will argue that depression, or melancholia, provides an emotional insight for artists attainable only through the experience itself.
Chapter 1: Psychoanalytical Views of the Artistic Temperament
Chapter 2: Historical Aspects of Melancholia
Chapter 3: Contemporary Artists Conveying Depression
Conclusion
Artistic temperament is the emotional intensity of the highs and lows experienced by artists which assist in the creation of unique vision. Throughout this thesis, evidence has been presented through a variety of interpretive means that reinforces this theory, including psychoanalytical and philosophical ideologies, an art historical context, discussion of artists and their work and my comprehension of experience within my artistic process. This artistic temperament has held true throughout historical times and into the contemporary field, providing various ways of visualizing emotion and expressing it to form comprehensive links between depression and the artistic process. This interconnection has reinforced and made almost tangible the part of the mind accessible only through psychological states of consciousness that exist in states of depression.
Submitted in part fulfillment of the degree of Master of Fine Art of the National University of Ireland Galway, 2013
Tutor: Martina Cleary
