Richard Wollheim

Paintings do not instantly disclose their meanings; and Wollheim has left us an amusing description of his own method of looking at paintings: "I evolved a way of looking at paintings which was massively time consuming and deeply rewarding. For I came to recognise that it often took the first hour or so in front of a painting for stray associations or motivated misperceptions to settle down, and it was only then, with the same amount of time or more to spend looking at it, that the picture could be relied upon to disclose itself as it was. I noticed that I became an object of suspicion to passers-by, and so did the picture that I was looking at."

Though he disclaimed any intention of psychoanalysing works of art, many of the remarkable interpretations in Painting As An Art seem to presuppose psychoanalytical ideas. In a virtuoso reading of a painting by Willem de Kooning, for example, he wrote: "The sensations that de Kooning cultivates are the most fundamental in our repertoire. They are those sensations which give us our first access to the external world, and they also, as they repeat themselves, bind us for ever to the elementary forms of pleasure into which they initiated us - sucking, touching, biting, excreting, retaining, smearing, sniffing, swallowing, gurgling, stroking, wetting."

The three threads of Wollheim's life and thought unite in this description: painting, philosophy and psychoanalysis. He argued that if painting presupposes a universal human nature, then "it must be absurd to bring to the understanding of art a conception of human nature less rich than what is required elsewhere." And he nails this thought down with the profound observation that "many art historians, in their scholarly work, make do with a psychology that, if they tried to live their lives by it, would leave them at the end of an ordinary day without lovers, friends, or any insight into how this came about."

from Richard Wollheim's obituary in The Guardian. Another item here.

Catharsis

taken from wiki:

The term in drama refers to a sudden emotional climax that evokes overwhelming feelings of great sorrow, pity, laughter or any other extreme change in emotion, resulting in restoration, renewal and revitalization in members of the audience.

Using the term "catharsis" to refer to a form of emotional cleansing was first done by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his work Poetics. It refers to the sensation, or literary effect, that would ideally overcome an audience upon finishing watching a tragedy (a release of pent-up emotion or energy). In his previous works, he used the term in its medical sense (usually referring to the evacuation of the "katamenia", the menstrual fluid or other reproductive material). Because of this, F. L. Lucas maintains that catharsis cannot be properly translated as purification or cleansing, but only as purgation. Since before Poetics catharsis was purely a medical term, Aristotle is employing it as a medical metaphor. "It is the human soul that is purged of its excessive passions." Lessing sidesteps the medical aspect of the issue and translates catharsis as a purification, an experience that brings pity and fear into their proper balance: "In real life, he explained, men are sometimes too much addicted to pity or fear, sometimes too little; tragedy brings them back to a virtuous and happy mean." Tragedy is then a corrective; through watching tragedy the audience learns how to feel these emotions at the proper levels. Some modern interpreters of the work infer that catharsis is pleasurable because audience members felt ekstasis (Greek: ἔκστασις)(ecstacy)(literally: astonishment, meaning: trance) from the fact that there existed those who could suffer a worse fate than them was to them a relief.[citation needed] Any translator attempting to interpret Aristotle's meaning of the term should take into account that Poetics is largely a response to Plato's claim that poetry encourages men to be hysterical and uncontrolled. In response to Plato, Aristotle maintains that poetry makes them less, not more, emotional, by giving a periodic and healthy outlet to their feelings.

In literary aesthetics, catharsis is developed by the conjunction of stereotyped characters and unique or surprising actions. Throughout a play we do not expect the nature of a character to change significantly, rather pre-existing elements are revealed in a relatively straight-forward way as the character is confronted with unique actions in time. This can be clearly seen in Oedipus Rex where King Oedipus is confronted with ever more outrageous actions until emptying generated by the death of his mother-wife and his act of self-blinding.

In contemporary aesthetics catharsis may also refer to any emptying of emotion experienced by an audience in relation to drama. This exstasis can be perceived in comedy, melodrama and most other dramatic forms. Deliberate attempts, on political or aesthetic bases, to subvert the structure of catharsis in theatre have occurred. For example, Bertolt Brecht viewed catharsis as a pap for the bourgeois theatre audience, and designed dramas which left significant emotions unresolved, as a way to force social action upon the audience. In Brecht's theory, the absence of a cathartic resolving action would require the audience to take political action in the real world in order to fill the emotional gap they experience. This technique can be seen as early as his agit-prop play The Measures Taken.

here's the full article: "Catharsis"

A divided nature

"Whatever the chaos in Brahms's mind, he negotiated his life with extraordinary discipline, common sense, integrity and honesty. The chaos of emotion shackled and subdued by a relentless sense of form and discipline: that is Brahms's art in a nutshell. Likewise, his life. And the most familiar and beloved note in his art is the note of yearning"

from Jan Swafford's article, "Bittersweet symphonies", on Brahms in The Guardian.

"By the end of 1854, their intimacy was so advanced that Brahms felt able to end one of his letters to [Clara] with a quote from the Arabian Nights: 'Would to God that I were allowed this day instead of writing this letter to you to repeat to you with my own lips that I am dying of love for you. Tears prevent me from saying more.'"

from Steven Isserlis' article, "Dying of love for you", on Robert and Clara Schumann and Brahms in The Guardian.

The lure of eros

... that hardened heart softened at once the first time the literary man spoke to him again... though it was only in passing and in the form of a mythological allusion, which to be understood required an education in the traditions of the West. It occurred after dinner; they ran into one another at the door that no longer slammed. Catching up with the young man, but with the intent of moving right past him, Settembrini said, "Well, my good engineer, how did you like the pomegranate?"

Hans Castorp smiled in confused delight. "I'm sorry - what did you say, Herr Settembrini? Pomegranate? We haven't had any pomegranates, have we? I don't think I've ever. . . no, wait, I did once drink some pomegranate juice and soda. It was too sweet for me."

Already past him now, the Italian looked back over his shoulder and carefully stated: "The gods and mortals have on occasion visited the realm of shades and found their way back. But those who reside in the nether world know that he who eats the fruits of their realm is forever theirs."


From The Magic Mountain by Mann, translated by John Woods

Choosing the true path

"May I say a few words to you, Master, while you're washing your hands and putting on your jacket? I'm starving for a mouthful of truth. I want to say something to you that I might perhaps be able to say right now and never again. I must speak to a human being and perhaps you are the only one who can understand. I'm not speaking to the man with the famous workshop who is honored by so many assignments from great cities and cloisters, who has two assistants and a rich, beautiful house. I'm speaking to the master who made the madonna in the cloister outside the city, the most beautiful statue I know. I have loved and venerated this man; to become like him seemed to me the highest goal on earth. Now I have made a statue, my statue of St. John. It's not made as perfectly as your madonna; but that can't be helped. I have no plans for other statues, no idea that demands execution. Or rather, there is one, the remote image of a saint that I'll have to make some day, but not just yet. In order to be able to make it, I must see and experience much, much more. Perhaps I'll be able to make it in three or four years, or in ten years, or later, or never. But until then, Master, I don't want to work as an artisan, lacquering statues and carving pulpits and leading an artisan's life in the workshop. I don't want to earn money and become like other artisans. I don't want that. I want to live and roam, to feel summer and winter, experience the world, taste its beauty and its horrors. I want to suffer hunger and thirst, and to rid and purge myself of all I have lived and learned here with you. One day I would like to make something as beautiful and deeply moving as your madonna - but I don't want to become like you and lead your kind of life."

...

And now the decision was at his fingertips; everything had become clear. Art was a beautiful thing, but it was no goddess, no goal - not for him. He was not to follow art, but only the call of his mother. Why continue to perfect the ability of his hands? Master Niklaus was an example of such perfection, and where did it lead? It led to fame and reputation, to money and a settled life, and to a drying up and dwarfing of one's inner senses, to which alone the mystery was accessible. It led to making pretty, precious toys, all kinds of ornate altars and pulpits, St. Sebastians and cute, curly angels' heads at four guilders a piece. Oh, the gold in the eye of a carp, the sweet silvery thing down at the edge of a butterfly's wing were infinitely more beautiful, alive, and precious than a whole roomful of such works of art.

From Narcissus and Goldmund by Hesse, translated by Ursule Molinaro

La vie retentissante et L'étranger

Du L'étranger, de Camus

"J'étais sûr de moi, sûr de tout, plus sûr que [l'aumônier], sûr de ma vie et de cette mort qui allait venir. Oui, je n'avais que cela. Mais du moins, je tenais cette vérité autant qu'elle me tenait. J'avais eu raison, j'avais encore raison, j'avais toujours raison. J'avais vécu de telle façon et j'aurais pu vivre de telle autre. J'avais fait ceci et je n'avais fait cela. Je n'avais pas fait telle chose alors que j'avais fait cette autre. Et après? C'était comme si j'avais attendu pendant tout le temps cette minute et cette petite aube où je serais justifié. Rien, rien n'avait d'importance et je savais bien pourquoi. Lui aussi savait pourquoi. Du fond de mon avenir, pendant toute cette vie absurde que j'avais menée, un souffle obscur remontait vers moi à travers des années qui n'était pas encore venues et ce souffle égalisait sur son passage tout ce qu'on me proposait alors dans les années pas plus réelles que je vivais. Que m'importaient la mort des autres, l'amour d'une mère, que m'importaient son Dieu, les vies qu'on choisit, les destins qu'on élit, puisqu'on seul destin devait m'élire moi-même et avec des milliards de privilégiés qui, comme lui, se disaient mes frères. Comprenait-il, comprenait-it donc? Tout le monde était privilégié. Il n'y avait que des privilégiés."

D'aprés cela, il semble plus evident pourquoi a-t-il finalement eu un désaccord d'idéologie en quelque sorte avec Sartre et Bréton.

Last Supper with Proust

"Proust looked wan, dank and sickly; he died six months later. At least he was conscientiously polite, and set out to ingratiate himself with Stravinsky by praising Beethoven's late quartets. 'I detest Beethoven,' snarled Stravinsky, and turned away. Proust then exchanged formulaic compliments with Joyce, although neither of them had read anything by the other. They were able to agree on the subject of truffles, which they both liked." - "Last supper with Proust"

Others on Beethoven

"One of [Christian] Neefe's first students was a sullen, grubby, taciturn 10-year-old keyboard player named Ludwig van Beethoven. He was the son of an alcoholic singer who had more or less beat music into him. The kid seemed more like a charity case than a budding musician, but Neefe soon discovered that his talent could put him in the league of the musical phenomenon of the age, a child of freakish gifts named Mozart." - "How the Illuminati influenced Beethoven"

"Beethoven’s last act was to sit up in his deathbed and curse the thunderstorm that raged outside." - "Touched by Fire"

L'art des vers

Qui pleure là, sinon le vent simple, à cette heure
Seule, avec diamants extrêmes?... Mais qui pleure,
Si proche de moi-meme au moment de pleurer?

The opening of Valèry's La Jeune Parque

Limbo

Now, according to the common shift from one stage of education to another, knowing full well that it was my decision, mine and mine alone, to deliberately ski through the small impression in the glacier that turned out to be a hungry crevasse, we find each day slicing the syllables e-ter-ni-ty into larger and larger chunks; they plop with defiant plops into a state very much like limbo, the stream gurgling through straiten'd banks fanning itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream keeps head against the freshnets. The wind shifts direction above the waves shimmering; the stark cliffs tunneling on either side the dangerous strait, but here and there we spy a hidden nook, protected by soft banks of sand from the buffeting wind, opening to a lush meadow promising fruit and youth evermore; but we, these Florentines, self-retired in hungry pride and gainful cowardice, praising not thy pregnant morrow but rather thy unplowed greens, are forever drawn by human nature's megrim. and how do we plead: unsure.