Hysteria

OF

Green and red

Nguyen Thanh Nam Suong

NGU13385876

t.nguyen8@arts.ac.uk

07423186180

Unit 7: Subject, Discipline, Individual Practice

Unit Leader: Dr. James Hellings

As far as the humanity existed, people were interested in the hidden side of life, in something they could not see and touch. They were actively questioning the meaning of their existence, what they were feeling and going through emotionally, what were their thoughts and ideas about, what did their dreams and desires mean. In the world of art the expression of various emotions and feelings can be found in a number of art movements involving Expressionism and Symbolism. In this essay the ideology of Expressionism will be discussed along side with the theory of hysteria that is a key feature of such movements as Expressionism, Surrealism and Symbolism. Edvard Munch's works, their meaning and ideas will be commented on in the light of the symbolic and expressionist concepts.

Expressionism

The term of "expressionism" was widely used by any kind of artists since the very 1850s, though the artist Julien-Auguste Herve originates the term by calling his paintings, which were exhibited in 1901 in Paris, the Expressionismes (Willett, 1976, p.274). The Czech art historian Antonin Matějček stated, that Expressionism is the antonym of Impressionism:  "An Expressionist wishes, above all, to express himself... (an Expressionist rejects) immediate perception and builds on more complex psychic structures... Impressions and mental images that pass through mental peoples soul as through a filter which rids them of all substantial accretions to produce their clear essence [...and] are assimilated and condense into more general forms, into types, which he transcribes through simple short-hand formulae and symbols" (Walter, 1998). The popularity of Expressionist concept escalated simultaneously in cities across Germany as the response to a widespread anxiety about humanity's increasingly contradictory relationship with the world in order to fill in the lost feelings of authenticity and spirituality. 

As a revolt against Impressionism and academic art, Expressionism was heavily influenced by the movements it was overlapping with, mainly with the "isms" of modernist art:  Futurism, Cubism, Surrealism and Dada and in the early years of the century, the term was widely used to apply to a variety of styles, including Post-Impressionism. (E. Grace, 1989, p.26). In addition to the above, the Expressionist movement was also affected by the art of Symbolist ideology in the late 19th century. It was inspired by such painters as Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard Munch and James Ensor; their work was encouraging in usage of strong colours to represent anxiety and depression (Zigrosser, 1957, p.5). Mainly, it was a really intense and bold form of the emotional experience, the key idea was the self psychoanalysis, the exploration of man's inner life. The artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was considered to be the founder of such group that rejected academic rules in painting and called themselves Avant-Garde, and also was one of the first artists of the Expressionist movement. "My goal was always to express emotion and experience with large forms and simple colours and it is my goal today" (ibid, p.15). As for the painting technique, Expressionists used swirling, swaying, loose and exaggeratedly executed brushstrokes in the depiction of their objects. It is clear that each artist has influenced each other with many of the artist's paintings involving sweeping slashes in a jarring movement across the painting. Often the compositions are unimpressive aesthetically, even though through the dynamic brushstroke history, bold colours and the sense of extreme emotion one artist can make the audience to experience the inner drama and sometimes even horror.

Narcissism and Hysteria

According to Jacque Lacan, a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, in his seminar text The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, paintings have the ability to speak specifically to the audience in the imaginary order, and so to the inner narcissistic ego. Thus for his own stated question "What is a picture?", he gives the response similar to Freud: it is a sublime composition of the unconscious into a socially acceptable and profitable stream. 'Broadly speaking, one can say that the work calms people, comforts them, by showing them that at least some of them can live from exploitation of their desire. [...] It elevates the mind, as one says, that is to say it encourages renunciation' (Lacan, 1973, p.111). So the artwork's function can be described as a space where the public can go to recognize itself, look for narratives and ideology to be reflected back at it. Referring to the above, the aim of painting, as Lacan states, is a 'certain dompte-regard, a taming of the gaze, that is to say, that he who looks is always led by the painting to lay down his gaze' (ibid, p.109). Paintings typically provide a form of pleasure by serving as mirrors to the ego, reflecting back at it an image of its own satisfied fullness and completion.

Although, Lacan straight after his statement suggests that there is an art movement that does not follow such theory at all. 'Expressionist painting, and this is its distinguishing feature, provides something by way of a certain satisfaction [...] of what is demanded by the gaze' (Lacan, 1973, p.101). Lacan in this suggestion opposes 'a taming of the gaze' (ibid, 109) to a 'quite direct appeal to the gaze' of the Expressionism (ibid, 109). In light of this, satisfying the gaze means eventually frustrating the human eye, and so the narcissism of the ego. For Lacan, painters of the Expressionism movement can easily frustrate our narcissism by representing their own point of view instead. They let their artistic hysteria hit the audience's gaze.

As it was mentioned earlier, hysteria was a term where several modernist movements in the beginning of 20th century could overlap. In the number of such movements where Expressionism and Surrealism that described hysteria as one of the key concepts. Both movements were interested in bringing to light the hidden world of unconscious desires, in focusing on instances of psychic and social failure, where law falter or break down. As an example of this can be Andre Breton's, the founder of Surrealist ideology, celebration of Nadja's madness, which eventually brought her to the asylum; it was exposed in Breton's "Nadja" (1928). It proves Surrealists interest in hysteria. In a two-page spread commemorating the "Fiftieth anniversary of hysteria"; in La Revolution Surrealiste in 1928, Breton and Aragon had written: 'Hysteria is by no means a pathological symptom and can in every way be considered a supreme form of expression' (no.11, p.20).

Edvard Munch and Separation

No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.”  - Edvard Munch

The late nineteenth-century Norwegian Post-Impressionist painter Edvard Munch emerged as an important source of inspiration for the Expressionists. His vibrant and emotionally charged works opened up new possibilities for introspective expression. In particular, Munch's frenetic canvases expressed the anxiety of the individual within the newly modernized European society. By 1905 Munch's work was well known within Germany and he was spending much of his time there as well, putting him in direct contact with the Expressionists. He is one of the handful of artists who have shaped our understanding of human experience and transformed the ways in which it might be visually expressed. 

P erhaps more than any other artist, Munch has given pictorial shape to the inner life and psyche of modern man, and is thus a precursor in the development of modern psychology. His images of existential dread, anxiety, loneliness and the complex emotions of human sexuality have become icons of our era. "The startling power of Munch's original work endures almost despite the image's present-day ubiquity," notes Ann Temkin, The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, who is organizing the installation. "The visual subtlety and complexity of this composition can't be summed up in a cliché." Especially concerned with the expressive representation of emotions and personal relationships, Munch was associated with the international development of Symbolism during the 1890s and recognized as a precursor of 20th-century Expressionism (Temkin, 2013).