The School of life - Art as Therapy

class="book">4. Claude Monet, Tift Water-Lily Pond. 1899

What hope might look like.

 

6. Henri Matisse, Dance (It). 1909

Cheerfulness is an achievement, and hope is something to celebrate. If optimism is important, its because many outcomes are determined by how much of it we bring to the task. It is an important ingredient of success. This flies in the face of the elite view that talent is the primary requirement of a good life, but in many cases the difference between success and failure is determined by nothing more than our sense of what is possible and the energy we can muster to convincc others of our due. We might be doomed not by a lack of skill, but by an absence of hope. Today's problems are rarely created by people taking too sunny a view of things; it is because the troubles of the world are so continually brought to our attention that we need tools that can preserve our hopeful dispositions.

The dancers in iVlatisse s painting are not in denial of the troubles of this planet, but from the standpoint of our imperfect and conflicted - but ordinary - relationship with reality, we can look to their attitude for encouragement (6). They put us in touch with a blithe, carefree part of ourselves that can help us cope with inevitable rejections and humiliations. The picture does not suggest that all is well, any more than it suggests that women always take delight in each others' existence and bond together in mutually supportive networks.

If the world was a kinder place, perhaps we would be less impressed by, and in need of, pretty works of art. One of the strangest features of experiencing art is its power, occasionally, to move us to tears; not when presented with a harrowing or terrifying image, but with a work of particular grace and loveliness that can be, for a moment, heartbreaking. What is happening to us at these special times of intense responsiveness to beauty?

The most striking feature of the small ivory statuette of the Virgin - just 41 cm (16 'л in) high - is the face (7). It is a face of welcome - the kind of look we hope to receive when someone is unreservedly glad to see us. It may remind us how rarely we have met with, or bestowed, such a smile. The Madonna looks full of life, and the incipient gaiety, which looks as though it might break through at any moment, is filled with kindness. It's the sort of good humour that will include you, rather than mock you. Her beauty can give rise to mixed emotions. On the one hand, we are delighted by an awareness of how life should more often be; on the other, we are pained by an acute sense that our own life is not usually like this. Perhaps we feel an ache of tenderness for all the lost innocence of the world. Beauty can make the actual ugliness of existence all the harder to bear.

It's sweet, but u by might it also make us tearful*

7. Sainte ClMpelle Virgin and Clnld. before 1279

We appreciate beauty more when we are aware of life's troubles.

8. Henri Fantin-Latour, Chrysanthemums. 1871

 

 

9. Henri Fantin-Latour. Self Portrait as a Young Man. с Л 860s

The more difficult our lives, the more a graceful depiction of a flower might move us. The tears - if they come - are in response not to how sad the image is, but how pretty. The man who painted a picture of humble, beautiful chrysanthemums in a vase was, as his self-portrait suggests, intensely aware of the tragedy of existence (8, 9). The self- portrait should put to rest any worry that the artist has presented us with a cheerful image out of misplaced innocence. Henri Fantin-Latour knew all about tragedy, but his acquaintance with it made him all the more alive to its opposites.

Consider the difference between a child playing with an adult and an adult playing with a child. The child's joy is naive, and such joy is a lovely thing. But the adults joy is placed within a recollection of the tribulations of existence, which makes it poignant. That's what 'moves' us, and sometimes makes us cry. It's a loss if we condemn all art that is gracious and sweet as sentimental and in denial. In fact, such work can only affect us because we know what reality is usually like. The pleasure of pretty art draws on dissatisfaction: if we did not find life difficult, beauty would not have the appeal it does. Were we to consider the project of creating a robot that could love beauty, we would have to do something apparently rather cruel, by ensuring that it was able to hate itself, to feel confused and frustrated, to suffer and hope that it didn't have to suffer, for it is against this kind of background that beautiful art becomes important to us, rather than merely nice. Not that we should worry. For the next few centuries at least, we have problems enough to ensure that pretty pictures are in no danger of losing their hold over us.

A lot of the world's art isn't just pretty; it seems to go further, presenting us with a thoroughgoing idealization of life. This can be even more troubling to contemporary sensibilities. The Royal College of Physicians stands in the middle of Edinburgh's New Town (10). Imagine the proceedings that are supposed to go on in this building - all dignity, erudition and calm authority, exactly the sort of professional face the doctors of Edinburgh would no doubt like to present. The building turns an august front to the world, demanding respect, even reverence. It embodies an idealization.

Idealization in art has a bad name because it seems to involve endowing something or someone (a profession, a person) with virtues more glowing than they actually possess, while disguising any imperfections with polish and subterfuge. In modern use, the notion of idealization carries a pejorative charge, as the idealizing artist strips away whatever is awkward or disturbing, leaving only the positive. The worry is that

if we arc attracted to such simplified objects, if we praise them and take pleasure in them, we will do an injustice to reality.

For example, a painting that presents the countryside as a serene and elegant location for pleasure might be criticized for excluding the economic realities upon which the vision depends (11). Where arc the servants who must bring the wine and fruit? Where are the peasants the leisured class rely on for their income? The fear is that in loving the picture, we ignore crucial aspects of existence, and even, in a sense, condone the exploitation of servants and peasants.