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Among the many paintings in the museum, only one suddenly captivates us. Why is she? What happens to us when we freeze in front of her, forgetting everything?
Guides and art historians usually tell us about the painter’s skill, his artistic techniques, about the ideas that inspired him, the details of the era and biography, explaining what thought and by what means he wanted to convey to us.
All this is interesting and important in its own way, but by and large it does not bring us any closer to understanding what exactly is happening between us and the picture that struck us and what our dialogue with it actually consists of.
open the curtain
The explicit content of the picture, its plot, is a kind of trap. A parallel can be drawn between a painting and a dream. A dream also has a plot, but an analysis of this plot will not give anything to find out what worries a person, his deep problems.
The psychoanalyst, on the other hand, understands that the plot of a dream is like a theatrical curtain that hides the essence – the space of the stage. No matter how much you talk about what is painted on it, the curtain will not open. But when the patient begins spontaneously, without thinking, to pronounce his associations, feelings that arise in connection with sleep, then that unconscious theater that is behind the curtain opens a little.
It’s the same with pictures. In moments of creativity, the artist seeks to awaken the deep voice of the unconscious within himself. He knows that awareness will kill that voice. And the deeper the unconscious layer he manages to convey on canvas, the more his picture will capture.
trust perception
But on the other hand, the perception of a picture is a deeply personal act. Either something in you resonates with this picture, or it doesn’t. Therefore, it is so absurd to talk about the fact that such and such a great picture cannot but shock.
In the Louvre, you can always see the crowd around the Mona Lisa: you can’t push through it, camera flashes from all sides, everyone is excited, and it seems to everyone that something incredible is happening in his soul now. This is an example of false perception. Many people think they are experiencing something. Because it’s right, it’s right. And having put a “tick”, they leave, satisfied with themselves.
In fact, approaching even the most beautiful picture, we can never be sure how we will feel right now. Feelings cannot be programmed. The picture may turn out to be “not ours”, and it is simply impossible to consciously evoke emotions in oneself.
Enter into resonance
The true perception of the picture is a serious inner work, but not of the mind, but of our unconscious. This happens only when we, like an artist creating a picture, stop reflecting, rationalizing and let go of ourselves, our feelings, fantasies. We wander through the halls, stop at some canvases, and only glance at others. The less expectations, the better.
And at some point, perhaps we feel an instant resonance with one of the paintings. Not understanding what exactly led to it. The plot of the picture will not help us understand this. But at this moment we feel something new – excitement, excitement or some other emotion.
We may even want to run away from the picture, because it stirs up dark sides in us or awakens painful experiences. Or, on the contrary, it reveals the best sides in us, and we want to prolong this feeling. And we may not feel anything special – we just want to stand and look at her.
Perhaps the next day we will see some kind of dream, or something will happen to us that it would not occur to us to associate with this picture (but what would be revealed if a person underwent psychoanalysis). Its impact can be deep and long, even extremely long. But we, most likely, will not know about it, because we will not be able to connect cause and effect.
Feel alive
Why is it so important to us then? Why do we go to museums, galleries, exhibitions over and over again? Again and again we return to “our” paintings? Each of us wants to be a more alive, more emotional, open and creative person. But this frightens us, and we close ourselves, trying to take everything under control, to live more mechanically.
Artists, on the contrary, all their lives try to somehow start this living, creative process inside themselves and convey it on canvas. And for us, pictures become windows into this other world, the world of the unconscious. This world is slightly revealed to us both in our dreams and in our waking fantasies. But, not trusting ourselves, we are afraid to look there.
A painting is a window that is already open. A road that has already been laid. Behind this “curtain” there is definitely a world! And we feel the need to partake of this mystery. We need to know that there is another world besides our three-dimensional one. This is a reminder that we have an infinite soul, infinite consciousness, deep emotions that give a completely different meaning to our lives. And our dialogue with the artist becomes a dialogue between two creators.
Art as an instinct
The collective unconscious is the source of inspiration for the artist (in the broadest sense, the creator), argued Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of analytical psychology. “Art,” he wrote, “is born in the artist as an instinct that takes possession of him and makes him his tool.”
Jung considered “duality”, “synthesis of paradoxical properties” to be the main feature of the artist’s personality: two forces are fighting in him – “an ordinary person with his needs for happiness, satisfaction and security in life” and “a merciless creative passion, involuntarily trampling all his personal wishes into the mud “.
That is why the personal fate of the artist often develops unsuccessfully or even tragically. Jung likened a great work of art to a dream that does not have an unambiguous interpretation: the dream “reveals an image of how nature grows a plant, and it is already left to us to draw our own conclusions from this image.”
About expert
Andrey Rossokhin – psychoanalyst, Doctor of Psychology, head of the master’s program “Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic business consulting” at the Higher School of Economics, head of the master’s program “Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy” at the Higher School of Economics.