In class on yesterday, when we were talking about Freud, all I could think about was Michelangelo.
Freud believed that the Id, the unconscious, was rampant in dreams, and that art was the fighting glimpses we caught of the Id. Freud’s point being, if we can understand the Id, we can understand ourselves. With Freud it seems there are very few or no learned behaviors, only the Id peaking out from behind the ego.
Do you think that is true?
I think that the Id, or raw unconscious does not equate with goodness, it equates with raw human expression, which could be art, could be genius, but it also could be psychopathic behavior. Art like this.
Again, though we are forced back to this question, what is art? Is this art? It seems to be an expression of the Id. Is this art? It seems far from the expression of the Id and closer to a business.
Then again, everything Michelangelo did was patronized. What would Freud say about The Prisoners?
Here are some more "tough calls". Are these art?
Choice A
Choice B (double points here for Freud).
Choice C
Choice D
They are all art in my book. Some are better than others...
ReplyDeleteWhile choice B is startling, it is also an interesting idea. The music paper is ridiculous! (But part of me wants to buy it just so I can be THAT person.) I want to know how the photography guy does his stuff.
I think that Freud would say yes to choices B and C as true expressions of the id. The rest... not so much.
Ultimately, it comes down to how you define and use the word "art." There are basically two ways:
ReplyDelete1. Honorific: the artifact has aesthetic merit
2. Classificatory/descriptive: the artifact is such that an art authority (usually considered, or considered part of, the "artworld") has conferred art-status upon it, independently of any aesthetic merit that the artifact does or does not possess.
So, for the tough calls you provide, the way someone answers will usually indicate what they mean when by "art." It should also be noted that they represent two ends of a spectrum; one need not be at one extreme or the other.
(By my interpretation, Freud would probably have subscribed to a classificatory definition, of which the role of the Id is the defining factor of art-status, regardless of quality. Though given the clear aesthetic interests that he displayed, I'm not entirely sure that this was the case.)
I think Freud's understanding of the id and the way it works with the other parts of the conscious might be complex enough to call all of these art and all of them an expression of the id.
ReplyDeleteA would express the artist's lust or desires for Roseanne.
B expresses the artist's attempt to suppress her longing for a penis.
C expresses the way the inner soul of the artist is crumpled beneath the superego and ego, or even the disorganized fashion of the id which so rebels against the organized other parts of the brain.
D is again the restraint of the other parts of the brain on the id, the music by the box.