(no subject)

[solitary_summer]

This morning, just before waking up, I dreamt that someone had cut back my (ex-)bonsai to almost a bare trunk, and for some reason this worried me to the point of tears; the kind of dream that makes you feel relief when you wake up to realise it has only been a dream. Odd.


I'm read too much trash, and only trash. It's rather pathetic.

Also, I think I might be getting a sore throat. As if I haven't got enough health issues (well, issue, singular, not to exaggerate) at the moment.


Randomness: Does it bother anyone else that art so often is the result of, or closely linked to, personal pain and unhappiness?



And, because it bears repeating, I really love Stadium Arcadium. So very beautiful, not only, but also in a powerful, good vibrations (awful phrase, but can't think of a better substitute at the moment), smile-on-my-face way.

Comments

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

Do you mean, specifically, the kind of art that comes out of personal pain? (I.e.,like a short story I was told of recently that was all about parents whose child had to undergo rigorous cancer treatment -- apparently the author knew what she was writing about from experience.) Because I don't think art in general comes from pain any more than it comes from joy or annoyance or boredom. Actually, I suspect annoyance with what other people have done and boredom in general are probably responsible for more art than any other states of mind.

I continue to love your pictures, btw. I hope they don't come out of personal pain. (I'm not being flip.)

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, now I'll actually have to think through what was little more than an off-hand late night remark... ;)

Do you mean, specifically, the kind of art that comes out of personal pain?

Yes and no. Maybe in a more general way of what inner force drives someone to create, makes it a veritable need to turn their thoughts and emotions, their perception of the world, into words or images. There often seems to be some kind of conflict or dissatisfaction, a search for an outlet of some kind behind that, rather than perfectly balanced happiness, although I'll readily admit that this assumption is based more on sentiment than researched facts, and in any case it would be more valid for the increasingly personalised art of the last few centuries than earlier ages, when the artist's person wasn't as important and the content of any work of art more determined by a patron's or society's wishes and expectations.

What triggered the sentiment in the first place was that while I'd been a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails a few years ago when I went through a period of depression, I can barely listen to the music any longer or watch the dvd from the last tour. Part of the reason is a near superstitious wariness of this onslaught of negative emotion and how it might influence me, but part is something a little different... there's even, in retrospect, a lingering sense of guilt (I don't pretend that this makes a lot of sense; most likely I'm being neurotic or over-sensitive) of having enjoyed it so much, of having, in a way, used someone else's personal pain to work through my own issues, especially knowing what since transpired about just how bad things were then, concerning drugs and whatnot.

With any work of art that becomes really meaningful and influential to me, book, music, whatever, I tend to look for some kind of - in a very lose sense of the word - connection with the artist, develop an interest in biographies, that kind of thing, and of course this, in return, at least sometimes influences my perception of the work.

And it increasingly bothers me to know the drug stories, the biographies of at least temporarily badly messed up or nearly destroyed lives behind the music I enjoy or enjoyed, while at the same time I have to guiltily wonder if, if it weren't for some common force behind, perhaps I wouldn't like it so much.

Books, too. Reading Thomas Mann against the background of his diaries can be quite heart-breaking.

But in the end I guess it's very likely that my perception is influenced and limited by my choice of favourite artists, who on the whole are not the happiest of people, and that my perspective of things is still more than a little skewed by depression...

And perhaps I was looking at too many Goyas and Boschs in Madrid. *g*


As for my pictures... At the risk of coming off extremely pretentious and pseudo-artsy, they're part of a tentative effort trying to re-connect to the world, seeing and recording my version of it. I used to do ceramic, ahem, sculpture-type thingies, which were almost exclusively introspective, an expression of emotion, until I'd come to a dead end, and photography forces me to look at the world outside myself for a change.

sorry...

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

I hadn't realised that this had got quite as long.

::faceplam::

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

Wow. What a question for my lazy Sunday morning.

The first thing that comes to mind: I'm very happy when I write. I only *can* write when I am happy. And yet, what I love to write is angst and general suffering. I like to have happy endings, true, but not before the soul has suffered and been tried. And I like the same things in books.

Second thing: maybe it's that unhappy artists get more attention. It's the Romantic thing, genius, inspiration, the tortured soul. People still don't believe that someone could write anything really great being perfectly happy and contented. Somehow, even *I* don't believe it, and devour biographies of schizophrenic, borderline, depressed, alcoholic or otherwise flagrantly unhappy artists. And a small, but shrill voice inside me keeps telling me that *I* will never produce anything great for the same reason. I'm just too happy most of the time. Absurd, isn't it?

Rationally, I don't believe it. I believe that great art comes from being human, from really being human. There doesn't have to be more pain than joy in that. And maybe it's all the same in the end. Mozart makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time, and this is not figured speech. So there you are.

As per usual, I'm spamming your journal and not making any sense. Maybe I'll come back when I have a coherent thought...

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

(Not spamming. Not ever spamming. :-) )

To be perfectly honest, *I* hadn't put that much coherent thought into it when I wrote it yesterday, nor a statistically balanced, in-depth research of artists' biographies. I was listening to the RHCP and it's been starting to kind of bother me to know the stories of drugs and general fucked-up-ness behind the music I love or loved, because I can't just shrug it off like that, and I guess from there it rapidly went into gross generalisation territory.

Although I still wonder what it is that drives some people to create, why it is a need for them...


In the end, like I said in the reply to the comment above, I guess it's my perspective and perception that are influenced by my choice of favourite artists, who on the whole are/were not the most cheerful bunch of people, and perhaps by the memory of depression, I don't know. Maybe I just focus on the 'pain' aspect too much and too rapidly, and forget the joy...


I only *can* write when I am happy.

I can understand that. Even my entirely embarrassing and depressed-as-hell poetry was written at times when I had a little more... mental space to find words, I never could do it when I was stuck in the middle of whatever emotional mess I was in. And like I've said before, I can't take photographs at all when I'm unhappy and out of sync with my surroundings...

[watergarden.livejournal.com]

it bothers me a lot, really, because i think personal pain is a bad thing. well, let me qualify that; there are some sorts of pain which are inevitable and because of that not so much 'bad' in my opinion as just human... but it seems like a lot of art comes out of *suffering*, which to me is a particular way of experiencing pain, and i am bothered by that. because suffering is definitely bad, full stop, there's no reason for it or excuse for it... and i don't want beautiful things to become a reason or excuse.

i'm not sure if that made any sense.

your dream would have made me cry. it's so cruel.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

It does make sense to me and I think it's a good distinction.

Like I said in my reply to koimistress, my initial remark was based more on feeling and personal experience than any objective observation, and perhaps my perception is skewed by my choice of favourite artists, but it really seemed to me that the something that makes people create art -- need to create art -- is more often rooted in some kind of, if not unhappiness, then some kind of deep-rooted conflict that perhaps necessitates some kind of outlet, than perfect, balanced happiness... But then, what do I know.

What triggered this post and really bothers me, because it makes you almost an accomplice in creating more pain, is what so often seems to happen with popular bands and musicians, the cycle of fame and popularity and how people are apparently often unable to deal with it... Sure, you could argue that it's only the person's own fault if they can't cope with that, but it still makes me vaguely uncomfortable... even if, as I rather suspect, that, doesn't make much sense at all.