In my last post I asked whether there was a difference between artistic and therapeutic and received a few responses, including one from Unbearable Lightness in her private blog - which I am not allowed to link to - and a few stray comments either on deviantArt or here.
I thought that rather than replying individually I should post again. Thank you so much for engaging with my question!
Let's recap: by and large I agree that creative therapies are based on the idea of making something artistic, but I maintain that their primary purpose is therapeutic, by which I mean a whole range of effects that are connected with a sense of well being; many have some curative effects. This does not mean that something created for a therapeutic purpose cannot have an artistic value. But being 'artistic' is a secondary feature of the work.
Of course, as usual in such discussions, invoking the 'greats' and making statements about them is de rigueur: e.g Leonardo did not mean to make great art.
I'm not sure about that. Leonardo was certainly aware of his own position as artist and made work that would be explicitly regarded as artistic, congruent with the aesthetic ideals of his time. I doubt it very much that Leonardo made work to express himself or work therapeutic for his soul - the very notion would have been alien to him.
What is missing from most responses to my question is the acknowledgement that art is a discourse, or at that, a series of interconnected discourses and as such it is heavily involved - imbricated - with institutions - thus society and its politics - and their time. What is also missing is the acknowledgement that there are many different views of what constitutes art and, again, those views are contextual.
The idea that art is for self expression is only one way to talk about art and its purpose, it is a discourse about and of art. It is inscribed in a broader modernist discourse and is what the Expressionists championed. Not all artists explicitly embrace Expressionism - not today - but Expressionism has definitely left its mark. The art therapies took their cue from Expressionism and its engagement with the depth psychology of Jung (please note, Jung, not Freud) and were developed by artists whose debt to Expressionism was substantial.
Not all art is meant to be expressionist/expressionistic. In fact there are those who totally dislike Expressionism and expressionism (I use a capital E when referring to the historical movement, and a small e when referring to the legacy of Expressionism, i.e. when people talk of creative self expression in relation to their creative pursuits. Some artists dont give a damn about self expression and instead use purposely their artistic medium to explore the medium itself or use it to comment on societal issues. Art is never divorced from politics and as such it is always of its time. Even when it claims that it aspires to Universal Beauty and it cannot possibly have anything to do with base things such as politics it is extremely political in that it embraces a very conservative ideology and discourse.
I am about to adjourn. I just want to add for the purpose of clarity what I mean by discourse and for this I shall refer to Foucault, for whom discourse is the :
ways of constituting knowledge, together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in such knowledges and relations between them. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and producing meaning. They constitute the 'nature' of the body, unconscious and conscious mind and emotional life of the subjects they seek to govern.
Once again I am hoping for a stimulating discussion. Have a good weekend!
(Photos by Nobby Clark of scenes from the play Hysteria written and directed by Terry Johnson, with Antony Sher, Will Keen, David Horowitch, Indira Varma as main actors)
To limit the purpose of art in any way seems to me almost like censorship. Some great art has been produced "merely" to make money; some merely as a craft exercise (many of Bach's pieces are primarily technical exercises; the difference is that these are almost never "mere" but also have that undefinable quality we often call "heart"); some as a deliberate attempt at something, as Wagner's "ultimate" music dramas; and some, undoubtedly, as therapy. Yet you're probably right that art produced as therapy is seldom great art--unless the therapy-seeker is also a great artist.
ReplyDeleteIm going to go out on a limb here . Is artistic expression the same thing as art ? I mean , every time someone draws you a map to a given location , theyre artistically expressing a concept . But is that map ever going to be shown in a gallery ? I think that while someone else might draw a squiggly line and call it art , and to them it may be art , its not going to be considered art unless and until it finds an audience who agrees with them . Granted that might not be in their lifetime even , but seeing as how art is such a subjective term , we are talking about perception , and if there isnt someone else appreciating it , its really not considered art until it finds its audience .
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