"We can never hope to duplicate Nature anyway-
therefore it is better to express one's own feelings.
How could one possibly paint real grief- tears that well up from the depths of person's soul.
Her contorted face, the swollen lips, her bloated crimson chin.
Her eyes were mere slits from which rivulets of tears were flowing-
and her reddish purple nose.
That anguish-racked face had to be painted the way I saw it then
against the green walls of the hospital and the inquiring, suffering
eyes of the child I had to paint just as I saw them staring out of the
tiny, pallid yellow body.
we content ourselves with painting pretty pictures to hang on sitting
room walls. Let us try and see, even though we ourselves may not
succeed, if we cannot lay the foundations of an art dedicated to
mankind. A style of art that will fire man's imagination. An art that
springs from our very hearts." - Edvard Munch
This man I never knew till a couple of days back when I was assigned to read an article by him. How crazy to read the words of a man who lived a life trying to pursue the art of expressing his soul onto canvas just as I am attempting to do for my action project. His writings now hold a significant position in my heart; he in a moments time, brought to my attention exactly what it is I am attempting to express not only in this project but in life. I could not formulate the words to make myself or another fully understand what I meant by this sort of expression, but this article allowed me to finally really understand. I guess I had this whole unconscious idea going on inside me for longer than I knew and even when I tapped into it I just didnt know how to explain what it was or what I wanted from it.
Like Munch, I do not just wish to paint my mood, or simply emotions, but rather the actual feeling- my soul. I want to see my soul in the art, not just the feeling of sadness, but rather the deep pathos for the soul left behind. I want to explain life and its meaning to me. To paint the essential, from within not without. That is why he feels we shouldn't paint nature, it is not ours, not of our imagination. He says the imagination is the organ of perception of the soul and that the works of the imagination can only be understood and appreciated through the imagination. Precisely: "There should be no more paintings of interiors, of people reading and women knitting. In the future they should be of people who breathe, who feel emotions, who suffer and love."- Munch
As far as my piece goes, I agree with this imaginational aspect, for as I previously posted I am clearly able to depict my soul in it even though it is composed of colors alone. It takes the soul to appreciate it and really grasp its meaning. Jung says we should derive our psychic conditions from these figures rather than deriving these figures from our psychic conditions. I am not sure if I am quite doing that, I guess in a sense I am, seeing as I am free floating- painting how I feel but not thinking so deeply into it that it will cause criticism and "how" or "what" I should paint. He says to loose touch with these figures in the archetypal sense is to loose touch with the soul. I guess one must be archetypally personal then.
"The image can only be studied through the image, by dreaming
images as they gather in reverie. It is nonsense to claim to study
imagination objectively since one really receives the image only
if he admires it."- Bachelard
Art is imagination, it is from within, I know many wont understand what I did. I know they will ask why I did it in this form, I know many will see nothing and think its hideous. But I see so much- a beauty in something that looks so morbid. A mute verbalization from the soul, of the soul, to the soul.
He states that soul is a perspective not a viewpoint toward things. This perspective is reflective, it mediates as a middle ground between me and a given event. Soul is an unknown component that makes meaning possible, it deepens an experience. A special relation with death is created out of experiences whether it be in love or pain. It is being able to see with an inner vision, a second sense making it a bodily experience. Making the soul alive. Munch asks that we see through the realism of our own lives, to see beyond the actual.
"It is soul with deepens events into experiences, making soul out of history."- Cobb
"The face of the soul moves, is alive, shows its grief, its fear, its painful vulnerability, its shy longing. Where before, the soul had little voice or face, now it has both: the soul embodied- no longer a bodiless soul and a soul-less body." -Jung
"Nature is not something that can be seen by the eye alone- it lies also within the soul,
in pictures seen by the inner eye."- Munch
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