Emotions and Trauma: Through the Eyes of Art
Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889, Museum of Modern Art, Wikimedia Commons
May is mental health awareness month in the US. Many famous artists have used their art to confront their own mental health challenges.
Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
Vincent Van Gogh was a renowned Dutch Post-Impressionist painter. The Post-Impressionists were reacting to the representation of light and color used in Impressionism. Post-Impressionist artists like Vincent van Gogh focused on reflecting their emotional and psychological state through symbolism in their works. Given his way of expressing his emotions through his paintings, we can understand that art was a coping mechanism for the painter. Van Gogh is known for his landscapes and self-portraits. One of his most famous paintings,The Starry Night (1889), was inspired by the view from his window at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy, in southern France, where he spent a year receiving help and care for his mental health struggles. The painter has fluctuating but intense brush strokes which could be a representation of the change in his mood and the way he perceived the outside world. Van Gogh once wrote: "Normality is a paved road: it's comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it." Both art historians and psychologists believe that he suffered from a mood disorder, which was reflected in his artworks and other literary pieces.
Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010)
Lousie Bourgeois was a French-American artist known for her inventive and groundbreaking installations, sculptures, and other mixed-media works. Memory, identity, feminism, psychological distress, and trauma were the artist’s main themes throughout her career. Bourgeois believed in the healing power of art: “Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented – which is what fear and anxiety do to a person – into something whole.” Bourgeois mainly used metal, fabric, and other similar unique materials. One of her most prominent works is the Spider (1996) which is an immense sculpture that holds a personal meaning to the artist. This work is known as an ode to Bourgeois’ mother since her mother was a weaver - working like a spider. The main symbol that lies behind this work is the concept of maternal protection. The spider's legs create a cage that awakens a sense of fear as well as vulnerability given the fragile look of the spider's slender legs. Bourgeois's works are a representation of her traumatic childhood. Her mother was ill, her father cheated on her mother and young Louise suffered from anxiety and depression.
Louise Bourgeois, Spider, 1999, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Wikimedia Commons
Yayoi Kusama (1929-present)
Yayoi Kusama once said: "I fight pain, anxiety, and fear every day, and the only method I have found that relieves my illness is to keep creating art." Kusama is a Japanese artist primarily known for her avant-garde installations, sculptures, and paintings. She is a pioneering conceptual and pop artist. Pop art is influenced by material and consumer culture. Kusama combines this movement with conceptual art where the idea of making art is more important than the finished product itself. Concerning her work, Kusama also says: “My art originates from hallucinations only I can see. I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings." There are certain repetitions and patterns in Kusama’s works such as the use of polka dots and flashy colors that resemble hallucinations. One of the artist's signature sculptures is Pumpkin (1983), a depiction of a pumpkin with polka dots. Kusama then continued this series of pumpkins on different mediums. The repetitive use of polka dots is also a representation of Kusama’s obsessive-compulsive disorder. Through her art, both she and the viewers have the chance to enter an extraordinary realm and interact with their possible fears and emotions.
Yayoi Kusama, Pumpkin, 1983, Fukuoka Museum of Art, Wikimedia Commons