The Artist and the Artist’s Self; Creativity and its Consequences

Question 1

Schopenhauer background

• dates
• where does he come from?
• father
• first name
• ethnicity

Answer 1

1788-1860

• Comes from an upper class commercial family
• Father was a volltarian (enlightenment thinker)
• -Hates the idea of Prussia and nationalism, moved to hamburg
• first name is Arthur
• German

Question 2

Bertrand Russel

-what did he write? what did he think about Schopenhauer?

Answer 2

Wrote essay on Schopenhaur -disapproving

-didn’t think Schopenhauer was qualified to write about art

Question 3

S’s general view

- three main points

Answer 3

• Will
• aesthetic consciousness
• What it means for artists

Question 4

Will

• what kind of philosophy?
• what are we all part of?
• are the differences between us?
• what is will a source of?
• what happens in the end?

Answer 4

The overarching idea of life/the human predicament.
A pessimistic philosophy
We are all part of this will to survive
There are no significant differences between us.
Will is a source of suffering and pain, a cycle that gets us nowhere.
Nothing will ever satisfy you. You will always want more.

Question 5

Maya

Answer 5

illusion: he says that we are addicted to it.

Question 6

Schopenhauer- pessimistic view

• relates us to..?
• what is our instinct?
• metaphor
• what kind of cycle?

Answer 6

• There is no eternal life or any positive outcome
• We are blades of grass
• We just are instinct for survival
• No solution: the will propels us through a cycle of suffering and desires (soap bubble illusion, it will pop)
• Non-action, non-being
• Place for art…not necessarily good

Question 7

S’s view of aesthetic consciousness – “relief from the…..”

• how is art created?
• what is it a mix of?

Answer 7

suffering_”

• Any art is created from a similar state of mind of a spectator
• Mix of pain, anxiety, boredom and interestedness

Question 8

Veridical

Answer 8

truthful but it mocks our ideals, at odds with conventional beliefs

Question 9

A painless state

Answer 9

for a brief moment we are delivered from the vile pressure of the will

Question 10

What does art work as?

• what is it a source of?
• what does it reveal?

Answer 10

Art is a source of knowledge…works as revealing the delusions upon which such knowledge and action is based

Question 11

anti-vivisectionist

Answer 11

against cutting up animals while they are still alive

Question 12

Who influenced Schopenhauer?

Answer 12

Kant, Plato, Buddha and the Upanishads.

Question 13

S's view of the consequences for the artist 
 why and what are they?
-what does revealing do to the artist?
-do the benefit?
-

Answer 13

• Revealing this veil or illusion only leads to more suffering for the artist
• Artists do not benefit from this revelation, somewhat perversely, their ability in this regard is at the expense of happiness or even survival
• Given the role of countering the will

Question 14

Romanticism

• when?
• what does it strive to do/express?

Answer 14

• Express a state of feeling to intense to describe
• Art movement in 18th/19th centuries
• Strive to express feelings too intense, infinite longing, mystical, affinity to nature and exotic, melancholic, evoke awe or passion
• Effort to express sensitivity

Question 15

Schop’s view vs Romanticism?

-how are we using art?

Answer 15

• Basically saying we are using art as a way to escape suffering
• Artist suffering painted onto a canvas (third main point), artists paint their experience in order to show to the audience.

Question 16

What does Jamison say that goes here about creativity and mental illness?
-recent research

Answer 16

Tries to show a correlation between creativity and manic disorders

• Recent research strongly suggests that compared with the general population, writers and artists show a vastly disproportionate rate of manic-depressive or depressive illness; clearly however not all (or even most) writers and artists suffer from major mood disorders
• Problems: charts do not prove much, artists make temperaments their subject matter so it is easier to make that correlation anyways, most disorders he is arguing actually are genetic

Question 17

What anecdotal evidence is there for Jamison?

Answer 17

He had different pedigrees of mental illnesses of different creative people and their families

Question 18

Apollo

Answer 18

God of the mind

Question 19

Dionysus

Answer 19

God of wine music

Question 20

Apollonian art

Answer 20

creative, sculpture, premeditated, plastic arts, art that is manipulated, the self, dream

• mental
• inside the illusion bubble

Question 21

Dionysian art

Answer 21

music, dance, spontaneity, destructive

-outside the illusion bubble with will

Question 22

What tendencies in human experience, behavior?

• Apollo
• Dionysus

Answer 22

Apollo: carefulness, more reserved?
Dionysus: a little bit more wild, the id.

Question 23

How is N different from Schop.?

Answer 23

Schop is completely negative, Nietzsche discusses different types of art and is a bit more neutral/optimistic.

Question 24

Is art pessimistic for FN?

Answer 24

No, nietzsche disagrees with schop.

Question 25

What are the plastic arts?

Answer 25

A broad word for the visual arts, normal art (sculpting, painting, etc)

Question 26

who is Dostoevsky?

Answer 26

A Russian novelist (1821 - 1881)

Question 27

Sigmund Fraud Background

• dates
• from where
• what did he study
• what did he do?

Answer 27

1856-1939
Thrived in 1890's
Born in Austria
violetnt anti-semetic outburst 
Nazis drove his family out
Researcher-studied science-served in military 
phrase "psyco therapy"
prolific writer

Question 28

what are, Reality Principle and pleasure principle

Answer 28

These two principles are in conflict as you sometimes pick one or the other

Question 29

Reality Principle

Answer 29

is the part of your mind that tells you right from wrong, along with cultural values (superego)

Question 30

Pleasure Principle

Answer 30

Your base urges ex. Hunger, Thirst, Sex, also your emotions partially (id)

Question 31

renunciation/repression

-what is repressed?

Answer 31

Normally the pleasure principle is repressed

Question 32

Fantasy-repression

-what does the repression mean?

Answer 32

This repression means we have no normal outlet so we use fantasies to satisfy our pleasure principle

Question 33

Nature park

Answer 33

It’s like a natural park. Everything works out because its like a little preserve..

Question 34

Introversion

-how does it turn out?

Answer 34

going far into this fantasy

-not productive, turns into a problem

Question 35

Artist and introversion

• how is the artist by nature?
• what kind of way out does the artist have?
• is this good?

Answer 35

The artist by nature is introverted.
He has a way out that nobody else has, this path is by making art. Use energy to make art. He elaborates his daydreams so that they lose their personal notes. Release good repressed energy.

Question 36

How does it end for the artist?

-what does he/she get?

Answer 36

There is a happy ending for the artist.

He gets what he or she should only get in fantasy before: honor power and the love of his or her gender.

Question 37

Path back to reality for artists

Answer 37

Art projects their fantasies → make money → fantasies come true
Ex. movies

Question 38

What artists want?

Answer 38

Longs to attain honor, power, riches, fame and the love of women but lacks the means to achieve these gratifications

Question 39

How art is different from other fantasy?

Answer 39

Artist’s product is better than ours
We don’t have to put work into it, just get to enjoy it
Ex. Star Wars movies → better special effects than what we would make