“The Beautiful Sorrow of Things”
I like movies with happy endings. Sadness sends me into a
panic, as if I will never get out from under the weight of it all. Yet I have
to admit there is an arresting beauty in sadness.
Tragedy, sadness, melancholia, anxiety, and even ugliness has
generated some exquisite art, music, films and theatre over the centuries. Sometimes
tragic events are shown with objectivity such as the Death of Marat by David, sometimes the internal angst of the artist
comes through with stunning effect such as Van Gogh’s Starry Night – the view from the window of him room in the mental
asylum.
In his essay ‘Atrabilious Reflections upon Melancholy’
(1823), Hartley Coleridge (son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge) praised
melancholy as a more refined state of mind than happiness: “Melancholy is the
only Muse. She is Thalia and Melpomene. She inspired Milton and Michael Angelo,
and Swift and Hogarth. All men of genius are melancholy – and none more so than
those whose genius is comic.”
In Greek and Roman poetry, the muse of tragedy, Melpomene, was
invoked so that one might create beautiful lyrical phrases. Thomas Carlyle believed
“Our sorrow is the inverted image of our nobleness.” The Japanese have a phrase
,mono no aware , literally ‘the
beautiful sorrow of things”
From childhood, everyone has encouraged us to be happy - parents
and friends, FM radio, and psychologists. The corner stone of Buddhism is the removal of
dukha or suffering. Perhaps they really mean we should be content: A friend
described himself, with a smile, as the second last note in the double bass of the
orchestra of life. But contentment rarely translates into art. A
restlessness whether of passion for discovery, or angst, or “karb” seems to be
a prerequisite to the creative process.
Some artists work is neither sad not happy – Mughal miniatures,
Da Vinci, Vermeer, Reynolds, Mary Cassatt, Renoir. Other artists present tragic
subjects not as a personal expression of sadness, but for the work to act as a
witness. Frieda Kahlo made paintings of her physical disabilities in almost
dispassionate detail.
The essential suffering of humankind was recognized by
Buddha, whose teachings elaborated ways of overcoming that suffering through
personal effort. However, the true originators of human suffering as an eternal
struggle emerged from the pantheon of vengeful Greek and Roman gods in constant
conflict with humans, epitomized by Prometheus who was chained to a rock for
stealing fire for humans from the Gods.
Every day for years, an eagle would eat his liver, which would heal at night
only to be eaten again until Hercules killed it with an arrow.
Along with the centrality of the suffering of Christ, the
tradition of suffering became a much visited theme in Western Art, continuing
well into the secular art of later centuries.
The Greek dramatist Euripedes, established the first concept
of tragedy in Art. Expressing painful
events in an aesthetic language creates a balance perceived as pleasing. He
introduced the role of the Chorus, a group of commentators who through highly
emotional song and dance, as Charles Segal writes, “give ritualized expression
to intense emotion and .. provide comfort solace and security amid anxiety confusion and loss”. One can
extend this role to the artist, who like the Chorus, directs the viewer towards
ways of responding through the
aesthetics of composition and colour.
The Romanticism of the 19 C presented sadness as a more personal
and internal state. As state patronage melted away, the artist, composer
and author retreated into the solitude of personal studios, allowing the space to
dwell on sadness.
There is a tendency to romanticize sadness as an excuse for
indulgent inaction. However, there is a
deeper value and need for sadness,
sorrow, and the awareness of tragedy. Joy and Sorrow are inseparable, the one
allowing the other to exist. Khalil Gibran says “The deeper that sorrow carves into your
being, the more joy you can contain.”
Sadness is one of the "six basic emotions"
described by Paul Ekman, along with happiness, anger, surprise, fear and
disgust. The family of Ragas evoke the nine rasas or emotions— the predominant
ones being love (shringara), peace (shanti), detachment and melancholic
solitude (vairagya).
According to the psychotherapist Thomas Moore, "Sorrow
removes your attention from the active life and focuses it on the things that
matter most.” It allows us to contemplate “the deep design” of one’s life. It becomes a way to heighten intensity of
feeling and emotional intelligence. Tears are equally provoked by extreme
happiness and joy as by sadness.
Sadness presents a moment of honesty and vulnerability. The basis
of true friendship is said to be based on
sharing grief, difficulties and sadness rather than just happy moments.
The creative impulse in many ways springs from the perception
of imbalance that the artist feels obliged to restore and, as Maurice Balcho
writes, “ build a bridge across the void”. Ernest Hemingway wrote “Writing
is easy. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
Art, music , dance and literature through structures of aesthetic ordering, make it possible for viewers and audiences to
process difficult emotions more safely. The act of transforming sadness into
art requires an objectivity, thus conveying the ability to control emotions,
transform them and, as Julia Kristeva says, enables a refusal to succumb to
melancholia.
Durriya Kazi
September 4, 2018
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