On the most fundamental level, access to the unconscious is essential for our own wellbeing. Our ego strength is in no way strong enough to hold back the door we lock to our unconscious, and it is in fact not useful to attempt to try to. The denial of the unconscious is the denial of a huge part of ourselves, and will inevitably lead to the experience of cognitive dissonance. The unconscious is always aware of things that we are not. Some of these things may be extremely relevant, helpful, and important to our everyday lives, and not allowing the communication of these can be particularly harmful to oneself. Although incorporating the arts into everyday life might seem daunting to some, it will become clear that our lives are already filled with art. We can use this knowledge in honing our artistic skills, and to help us work towards building a more holistic understanding of ourselves and those around us. The positive results of a greater understanding of the unconscious are endless.
Whatever form it chooses to take, to be considered art, it must be filtered through a human. To become an expression of art, an idea, thought, or vision must be taken outside of the person. This clearly is a broad definition regarding the boundaries of art, and may seem to trivialize its existence, though it ought not to be so carelessly disregarded as such. Because of this tendency to inaccurately belittle the weight and value of art in light of a misinterpretation of my definition, I will try to substantiate its value. We cannot help but make art. Just as our bipedal mode of walking is the human’s primary means of transportation, art is our elemental means of human expression. Our language, our writings, our drawings, sculptures, paintings, songs, buildings, and roads were all at some point an internal idea in the minds of their respective creators. The filter of the human experience that the creation goes through before being actualized is the most essential part of the process. These creations are subject to the influence of the person’s whole self –including experiences, conscious thoughts, inner thoughts, unconscious motives and drives, and anything that lays beneath the surface of the conscious mind, as well as the ties that connect us to one another through the collective unconscious.
Because of the dangers involved in giving art a much broader definition than we usually would, it is important to refine our terms by explaining varying degrees of art. This can also be a very subjective process, as are most things that fall within the domain of the human experience. It is important to take note of how this definition of art and a further refined description does not make any mention of the relevance of beauty in respect to art. Beauty is a subjective term that is often times irrelevant to the measure of significance or power of the art itself – for the most powerful art can be the ugliest and the most disturbing.
This definition of art clearly omits nature. No matter how striking a picture a sunset paints, or how “artfully” the northern lights dance in the night sky, their power and beauty ought not to be confused and understood as art. If they were art, to what artist do we credit the work? What conscious or unconscious contexts and meanings are being communicated through their existence?
In beginning to refine this definition, it is fair to ask about the artistic merit of a dream. Initially, this might seem complex, but upon further investigation, it is not. Regardless of the richness of symbolism and imagery present in any given dream, as long as the dream is kept within the bounds of the individual, it cannot be considered art. It must be expressed in some way that brings it outside of the individual. It must be opened and exposed in any form or medium that the dreamer finds appropriate. The creation of art allows for the careful manipulation of the unconscious. When things are left inside, they are left raw and will grow wild. When a dream is left untended, it has the opportunity to influence the dreamer without any respect to their will, and the dreamer will not have very much control over its sway.
The dream is perhaps the source of the greatest and most intensely deep source material for art. It is also for some the easiest way to gain access to the unconscious. The unconscious is a profoundly complicated, knotty mess that ties together many different parts of ourselves to the multitudes of different parts of our society and culture. It also provides us with the richest and most concentrated source of information that we should extract from the unconscious and use when creating art. Even though the dream is the most vital source, it is still endlessly complex and infinte meanings can be drawn from it. Through evaluating this complexity, we can help refine varying degrees of art. The artist who is drawing substantially from the world of their dreams is the true artist. The more that the artist intentionally draws from this world of dreams that is spread before us by the unconscious, the more significantly artistic their creation is. Though our unconscious influences every action of our everyday lives, it is the artist who intentionally seeks the unconscious, working with it, rather than letting it blow the individual in one way or another without his knowledge, that creates work deserving the most merit. It is similar to the taming of a beast, and can be understood in the following analogical question: who is more skillful in his dealings with the lion? The man running fast and blindly, narrowly escaping the wrath of the beast, or the lion tamer who has developed a relationship and understanding between a once untamed, wild beast?
One might ask that if access to the unconscious is what makes the greatest art, why not simply lie down on the psychoanalyst’s leather sofa, share one’s dreams, and work together in parsing the symbols and working through the mist? For some, this is the perfect medium for the creation of their art, because it allows for a better handle on their unconscious. For others, it presents a challenge similar to that of being directly immersed in a foreign culture – it is unfamiliar, abstract, and the means for expressing oneself is tremendously difficult. Furthermore, even after this expression, it is often then lost in translation. What I am stressing here, is the importance of finding one’s own “language” through which to express themselves and have their art grow from. Psychoanalysis works as an artistic medium for some, though not others. This leads to a question of whether or not sharing your dreams with a friend counts as art, and my answer would in fact be yes.
Because we are inherently unique individuals, no matter what kind of art is put forth, there is no way that the piece will not provide each viewer with his or her own unique experience. Once the artist has opened the door of the unconscious and allowed the flood to spill forth, the art becomes further refined if the artist can manipulate whatever form the art has so far taken into something even more sophisticated. These high forms of art acquire their status when the viewing of the piece is able to weave together peoples’ unique experiences together, allowing for a shared experience. This shared experience is possible because the artist is going deep enough to access the ancient archetypes of the collective unconscious and present them to the masses. These archetypes are the most universally recognizable themes that make the information presented to us most easily digestible. The two different ideas just presented might seem to be in conflict with one another – stating that we all have our own unique experience of any given piece of art, yet for a piece to be powerful, it will become a shared experience. However, it is important to realize that these two types of connections to art do not have to be mutually exclusive. Just as we are all humans, we are also all unique individuals that are tied together on the most basic level through parts of the human experience that everyone shares.
Another important gauge in the merit of art, which puts less responsibility on the creator, is through what the viewer receives and feels in response to whatever the stimuli may be. Perhaps the architect of the tollbooth on the Henry Hudson Parkway thought mostly of function when constructing his design, and chose colors for no other reason than to stand out against the bleak backdrop. However for me, every time I drive through, the colors stir something in me – the combination of the neon yellow, avocado green, and E-Z Pass purple, strike something inside of me that I can not entirely understand, for perhaps it is buried deep under layers of my unconscious’ soil that I have not yet been able to reach in my own digging, but there is no denying that it does affect me in the same ways that Rousseau’s “The Dream” does every time I walk through the halls of MoMA.
When writing “The Red Book,” Carl G. Jung allowed himself to be “swallowed up” by his unconscious. He was experiencing a deep unrest, and felt as though he had “lost his soul” due to his split with Sigmund Freud. In an attempted process of healing, he pursued active imagination, delved into his dreams, and recorded them all in vibrant images and elaborate calligraphy on sheets of parchment in a massive red leather-bound book. There are much more practical examples of the successful accessing of the unconscious, and they can be found almost anywhere we choose to look. Anyone working a job is creating art through their occupation, however those that feel fulfilled and satisfied are doing something more. Those that are experiencing cognitive dissonance are doing something that clearly violates their beliefs, and in doing so denying a substantial part of themselves. In going back to the purposed goal of creating a holistic understanding of the self, it is the individual who finds contentment in their everyday life that is creating the most meaningful art. The individual with a more clearly defined wholeness of self is also more open, ready, and able in connecting and understanding the archetypes of the collective unconscious, and thus contributing to a healing and mending process that can perhaps escape the bounds of the individual.
No comments:
Post a Comment