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Key points
- Artistic expressions are a mirror of our cultural history.
- Artistic expressions have the ability to heal both the creators and their recipients.
- Artistic expressions can shape our perceptions of our personal realities.
Artistic expressions are a mirror of cultural history.
Have you ever been intrigued by a story told in the form of artistic expression (music, visual art, writing)? How many times have you picked up incidental cultural and historical knowledge through interacting with artistic expressions that are either not discussed in depth in a textbook, not presented in a memorable way, or never mentioned in the first place?
During the pandemic, I was introduced to Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany, a book by Martin Goldsmith detailing the escape of his parents—both musicians—from the Holocaust. While themes such as antisemitism regularly appear in the headlines, it was from Goldsmith’s inspiring and heartfelt narrative that I was transported to an imaginable time and place in human history. The visceral feelings accompanied by engaging with the writing at various moments in the unfolding story feel as real as if I had experienced those historical moments firsthand.
The Jüdischer Kulturbund (Jewish Cultural Federation), also known as Kubu, was an organization through which Jewish performers used their artistic expressions to enliven the cultural lives of the Jewish population in Germany during World War II. Kubu was a creative movement in response to the Jewish cultural exclusion mandate. The organization operated under the constant surveillance and close scrutiny of the Nazis. Under the spell of Goldsmith’s rendition, the events and people who are part of the fabric of the war's history popped up from the pages, as my heart rose and sank with the changing fates of Günther and Rosemarie, Goldsmith's parents, whose lives were interwoven by the choices they made during an unthinkable time.
Have you ever wondered about what it feels like living the lives of people whom you’ve never met or lives that would otherwise have been unfathomable? Through engaging with artistic expressions, and with some imagination, we can gain access to places, lives, and experiences by piercing deeply into the mirror of our cultural history.
Artistic expressions heal the creators and recipients.
There were times when creative writings such as novels were blamed for causing large-scale societal problems such as suicide. The late-18th-century German book The Sorrows of Young Werther by J.W. von Goethe, for instance, was banned due to a perceived increase in the suicide rate among young people, following a few exceptional cases. Recent research has debunked that myth. According to Thorson and Öberg (2003), with the exception of a few imitation cases, there is no evidence that an epidemic arose after the book’s release.
Personally, as I better understand an author, musician, or visual artist’s life and what inspired them to create their masterpieces, I become more convinced that many have used their artistic expressions to heal themselves by transforming personal trauma into sources of inspirations and distilling suffering into wisdom. The recipients of their creations are often healed by participating in the co-creating process as they form their personal interpretations of the stories, artworks, or musical compositions through the prisms of their life experiences.
Whether it is from the sound of “Moonlight” rendered by the near-deaf and suicidal Ludwig van Beethoven; the internal monologues of the narrator of In Search of the Lost Time as universal themes of life are contemplated; the depiction of a metaphorical sanatorium as a microcosm of pre-World War I Europe in The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann; or a glimpse of Gustav Klimt’s symbolic portrayals of fin-de-siècle Vienna or Edvard Munch’s inner vision, beyond being educated about times and places that I have not lived in and the concerns of personages with whom I never crossed paths, these artistic expressions, accompanied by meticulously compiled biographies of the artists, offered a glimpse of how the creators projected their existential angsts and internal struggles onto their mental canvases and chosen media of expressions.
In envisioning myself as a part of the creation and through iterative silent dialogues with the artists, I find myself at times identifying or empathizing with, and at times questioning, the creator’s vantage point. Regardless of the position I take, I often find myself transformed by participating in the interpretive process. Immediate worldly concerns often dissipate as a result.
Bibliotherapy, music therapy, and art therapy have already become popular techniques through which contemporary psychotherapists interweave their clinical expertise and personal creativity in connecting with their clients, with the end goal of helping others alleviate their suffering from traumatic events and solve specific personal issues. Beethoven continued to compose after becoming completely deaf. Turgenev continued to write despite his unrequited lifelong love for an opera singer. Goethe’s life journey continues on as a polymath, long after telling Werther’s story. Recipients of their creations continued to be inspired by these artistic visions and expressions. It can therefore be argued that artistic expressions more often replenish the souls of creators and nourish the lives of the recipients than depriving both parties of the will to live.
Artistic expressions shape perceptions of personal realities.
“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.” ― Marcel Proust
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ― Proust
I used to travel in order to escape my personal reality or unresolved issues, or simply to shake off the doldrums of a mundane life. Having traveled across latitudes and altitudes and traversed the oceans and mountains, many times, I found myself in exactly the same place as before upon return. Of course, there was a brief phase of rekindled joie de vivre. However, the blissful moments were quickly overcome by the same patterns of attitudes, behaviors, and thoughts.
Interestingly, it was during the pandemic, when lockdowns made travel anywhere at will impossible, that I gleaned the most wisdom about life. This was made possible by co-creating artistic experiences with authors, composers, and visual artists and by becoming a creator myself.
The quotes above, by Marcel Proust, capture the essence of how we gain wisdom and make discoveries about personal realities. While traveling can be a source of inspiration, the journey of self-discovery is foremost internally focused: We need to somehow manage to see the same landscapes with new eyes. Compelling artistic expressions have the magic power to shape our perceptions of reality via altered states of consciousness. In doing so, they enable us to view the same reality with fresh eyes.
How do you plan to discover your personal reality?
