My Influences - Books

In an art world full of mark-making that seems to me to be devoid of meaning and art that is devoid of concepts, this book has restored my confidence that making art serves some of the deepest needs of the human soul.The idea is not a new one. In the 1940s, Abraham Maslow published his hierarchy of human needs and became the father of humanistic psychology: when once the needs of the body (food, shelter, safety) are met we develop needs of the soul and the need for beauty and peak experiences is top on this hierarchy.

In Art as Therapy, Alain de Botton and John Armstrong look at the various healing functions of art.

Remembering: Humans are ace at forgetting and this upsets us. Good artists, like good writers, seem to know what is appropriate to commemorate and what can be left out. In Regnault’s “The Origin of Painting: Dibutades Tracing the Portrait of a Shepherd’ (1786), the woman longs to remember not just the contours of her departing lover’s face but his essence.

Hope: Paintings depicting positive emotions have often been described in art tradition as being of ‘bad taste’. De Botton reminds us that most of the time, we human beings suffer from excessive sadness, fear and guilt. Paintings that bring hope are therefore of paramount importance in restoring our faith that not all of Life is not about doom and gloom. Henri Matisse’s ‘Dance II’ (1909) depicts 5 women in joyful harmony of step with an exuberance of zest and vigour. ‘Pretty’ pictures are immensely popular for their cheeriness and we are reminded that they serve an important function.

Sorrow: Art can enable us to confront our own sadness and to engage with, rather than avoid it. De Botton suggests that if can teach us how to suffer more successfully. He points us to Richard Serra’s Fernando Pessoa (2007-2008), an oblong, solid black wall confronts us with our own despair and enables us to recognise that this is a universal emotion and that we are not alone in our suffering.

 Rebalancing: Art helps us to re-balance our lives. It is not hard to imagine that we have become too frantic, time pressured and stressed, unbalanced in the time we spend in relaxation, with family, in nature. Art can take us to those places of stillness and quiet and remind us to redress the imbalances in our way of being. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House (1951) shows us a room of stillness, relaxation with greenery just outside glass windows. Such art reminds us to reinstate what is lacking in our lives as we live in a frantic modern city.

 Self-Understanding: We are sometimes a mystery to ourselves. Art can help us clarify ourselves to ourselves. Just as good poetry is the ability to give clear expression to our half formed inarticulate thoughts, art enables us to recognise moods and mental states that escape our understanding. Cy Twombly’s Panorama (1957) which is a series of scratches on a black background reflects back to us our everyday experience of dread and despair and we are thus able to understand ourselves better.

 Growth: Our own internal negative reaction to certain genres of art for example those depicting religion or class point us in the direction of an awareness of our own prejudices. |For example John Singer Sargeants Portrait of Lord Ribbeldale (1902) which shows a tall, upper class English gentleman embodying all the insignia of his privileged status might make one feel disgusted. This negative response can, if we allow it to, help us to grow into a greater awareness of the biases that taint our vision.

 Appreciation: We sometimes grow so used to things in our environment that we cease to see them. Art can lead us to a refreshed appreciation of simple things. Jasper John’s Painted Bronze 1960 enables us to look at the ordinary beer can with new eyes.

Having outlined these 7 functions of art, de Botton and Armstrong go on to consider what counts as good art. Traditionally, we read art as good if 1) it has pioneered the use of new techniques and materials 2) it says something poignant about the political milieu 3) if it tells us about history and 4) it disrupts our received sensibilities and has shock value. De Botton and Armstrong add a fifth dimension upon which to judge whether art is good: does it have a therapeutic function, does it heal the soul?

 As a psychologist and an artist, I am privileged to be studying art in the period after the publication of this book. It presents to me in a formal way, the reasons that have always spurred me on to paint. 

This book has had such a profound influence on my art that I planned and undertook a trip to Japan in order to search for Wabi Sabi in Contemporary Japanese Art.

 The philosophical ideas underpinning Wabi Sabi are outlined in Unit 3. Suffice it here to say that Wabi Sabi embodies Buddhist perspectives on impermanence, incompleteness and imperfection and that Wabi Sabi is the art of coaxing beauty out of what might be traditionally seen as ‘ugly’.

 As a result of reading this book I searched for representations of Wabi Sabi in art in Japan and then looked for its manifestation in England. I found it in the field of ceramics but it was significantly absent in the field of painting.

Here are some pertinent images from a famous ceramicist, Kazuhiko Miwa (b. 1951) in Japan.

Bernard Leach (1887- 1979) was an English potter who was born in Japan  and who lived and worked there for many years before retuning to England. In my opinion his work most closely embodies the spirit of Wabi Sabi in ceramics. The Leach Pottery in Hampshire still produces work in this rustic vein..

I am privileged to own one of his pots.

There are many more books that have influenced my thinking, in particular Buddha Mind in Contemporary art by Baas and Jacob (2004) and A Japanese Tractate by Richie (2007) but limitations of time and energy means I can only pay homage to them in this brief sentence here.