SELF-PORTRAIT AND THE INNER WORLD

                                      SELF-PORTRAIT AND THE INNER WORLD                                                       (PSYCHICAL EMOTIONS)                                                                                                                                                                                                              Palamar Ioana

,,George Enescu” Fine Arts University, Iaşi,  The Faculty of Fine Arts and Design

Resume:The project ,,Self-portrait in paintng (psychical emotions)” is about a personal interpretation  of the psychical emotions as for the concept, the composition and the colours. Painting is a  real therapy for the inner tensions, fears and (high) emotions and all these things suppose having a good knowledge of yourself. Key words:emotion, psychology, psychical disorder, therapy, self-portrait.   First I will give a neutral definition of the ,,self-portrait” that means a simple representation of a person in painting, drawing, literature or in other fields. I will quote one of our greatest Romanian poets Nichita Stănescu who defines ,,self-portrait” as being ,,nothing but a spot of blood that speaks.” This quote reflects the poetic sensitivity that betrays a very thorough analysis of the human being, which is just a spot of blood  that can speak, breathe and live. The poet harmoniously combines the terrestrial space, symbolised by the stain of blood, with the Divine one, which is the word: ,,At the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God”[1]. So, the word stands for the Divine essence; the word can sketch a self-portrait with a great mastery of words and thoughts… This bloodstain uses words, expressions and colours, displaying a rich palette of meanings.                                                                                                                                            What is self-knowlefge about? It is a form of knowledge regarding the inner reality as for philosophical, psychological, zodiacal, bibliographic, religious perspectives. Self-knowledge is very complex process, requiring a lot of tenacity, patience and determination in exploring oneself. This kind of knowledge is deeply rooted in this state of introspection and vice versa; these two concepts are linked to the ,,self-portrait” as artistic genre and they cannot ,,breathe” one without the other. The Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari said that loneliness is a must for the great artists, because they can reach a deeper state of contemplation. I will quote Leonardo da Vinci, who said the following words: ,,If you are alone, it means that you belong entirely to yourself… If you are accompanied by even one person, only half side of you belongs to yourself, or even less, depending on his/her behaviour; and if you have more than one companion you will fall deeper into this sad state.” The philosopher Gerolamo Cardano believed that ,,the possession of the inner universe” is the most important thing. Self-portrait is a way of expressing the soul onthe canvas”[2], a way of talking to yourself, as the philosopher Denis Diderot says. The Renaissance writer Michel Eyquem de Montaigne  said that  the inner part is the place where the painter is with himself, erasing any tracks before enclosing in himself, as animals do before entering in their burrowing.                                      Self-knowledge also involves a relationship with the others. Here I have to point out that Leonardo da Vinci considered his travels as a source of creation, thus his art was built on experiences. The great Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner (19^th century) says that art is deeply rooted in life and we are nothing but a sum of memories, ideas, thoughts and feelings that we need to express in art.                  Self- portrait is a form of introspection that I have to focus on. I will illustrate some ways of perception towards this artistic genre. For example in the Middle Ages people used to believe that the presentation of a specific person, and why not, a self-presentation, wards off the inner demons and fears. The American poet Edgar Allen Poe (19^th century) mentioned in one of his stories the idea that in the very moment when a character is represented on the canvas, he/she loses a part of the soul. The eyes are the main connection point between the portrayed person and the artist.

1.1 The artistic creativity from a psychological perspective                       Eyes symbolise the life itself, this explaining the medieval belief that by illustrating a person, his/her days are shortened. Perhaps in this case there is the unconscious artist’s desire to incorporate life, the desire arising from the need for finding the essence of the Divine nature, because God is life, that is gained through the artistic creation and the eyes are just the visual elements that support this idea. From a psychological perspective, the breast is a source of life for the child and when he/she reaches the stage of maturity wants to separates himself/herself from the object (which is mother’s breast). That’s why there appears the desire of gaining a source of life through the artistic creation  itself. Thus, there appears the unconscious fear of death that is overcome by the process of internalization. This process is equivalent to the Absolute and that would be one of the best way of finding oneself and expressing one’s soul. It involves a creative thinking which is located in the right part of the brain, that is also called the black box type of thinking. Self-analysis is met at many artists who use painting as a therapy, showing their emotions, desires, frustrations and conflicts which are deeply repressed in their unconscious. The emotions involve aspects of normality but also psychotic aspects. So, the eye is the essential elementdthatd betraysdthem. FFeelings, emotions, even trauma are generated by the limbic system, which is located under the cortex,  the conscious part of the brain. The information and the images are received and transmitted by the thalamus to the cortex, via the optic nerve. The limbic system is actually a group of brain structures, whose role is to temper the emotions and the pain.((Self-)Portrayal involves capturing the visual compositional structure, the colours which are analysed in the occipital lobe (visual cortex)  and the limbic system triggers emotion, betraying various states of mind and even psychotic aspects. There are three categories:conscious, preconscious and unconscious parts, analysed by Sigmund Freud, the father of  psychoanalysis.                                                                           Before presenting them briefly, I want to say that psychoanalysis itself is a form of internalization through which there are revelaed certain desires, emotions, that are apparently forgotten but deeply hidden.                                                                                                             Counciousness is the top level regarding the organization and the manifestation of the psychic life. This could be defined as an area that supposes a maximum  illumination and clarity of the mind, which is based on analysis, critical evaluation, decision, and control, everything being done deliberately. It also imposes mental limits, which explains our strongest wishes, fears or thoughts that exist in our subconscious.

Preconsciousness is located between an consciousness and unconsciousness parts, being considered the ,,abode” of the temper and of  the character. In this case the super-ego has a  great importance, being strongly connected to the education. Unconsciousness is the primary level as for organization of the psychic, due to the development in the psychoanalysis made by Sigmund Freud. It is based on the inner biological necessities, instincts, conflicts, traumas that are accumulated in this area and that can cause serious disorders, such as hysteria. There is to be mentioned that the limbic system takes part from the unconsciousness.  

1.2 Between normality and psychosis (Self-portraits in the universal painting)          

Only the famous artists, as Michelangelo Bounarotti, Leonardo da Vinci were able to express emotions from their  inner world. The Egyptian, Greek and even Roman ancient art did not succeed to  reveal emotions and tensions. In England, Greece and Japan there were  introduced at the beginning masks for showing the emotions. Giotto di Bondone’s Gothic paintings and then the Renaissance’s works of art are considered to be greats developments as  for individualizing the features of the face, that no longer appear emotionless as before. I would like to refer again to the unconscious part, also called ,,the engine of thinking”, which reveals certain aspects of psychopathology and their causes.

In the 20^th century there was published the book ,,The images of the mentally ill people” by Hans Prinzhorn. Authors such as Immanuel Kant, Auguste Comte, Denis Diderot, Mircea Eliade were particularly interested in this subject and artists such as Eugene Delacroix made ​​important contributions in terms of artistic creativity regarding the the psychological approach.   It is very difficult for the psychiatrists and for the art critics to find out where the normality ends and where the pathology begins. The perfect normality is an utopia, as Freud said ,,The normality is an ideal fiction; every human being is psychotic in a certain moment in a greater or lesser degree. ”[4] Sanity is defined by the presence of positive emotions, which provide flexibility for daily challenges. Mental illness, at the other antipode, betrays a high degree of disturbance of the functional structures, an imbalance regarding the way of thinking, of behaviour. Many artists from the 20^th  century , such as Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Jean Dubuffet’s drawings were inspired by the mentally ill people’s drawings. There is the belief that the primitives, the children and the mentally ill persons have access to the primordiality and to the purity, not being harmed yet by the education and by the society. Therefore, it is obvious the existence of this concern for the bizarre, fantastic things, dreams. The surrealists for example, were very interested in the unconscious. Salvador Dali described his manic behaviour in his autobiographical book ,,The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, narrated by Salvador Dali ”. But there is a great distinction between psychotic and those who only pretend to be so; the first ones are not concious about their artistic creation, in comparison to the second ones whose creation is done deliberately, consciously representing even artistic visual currents as pointillism. The question is how can you figure out the the insane artists from the normal ones, or there is a mixture of insanity with sanity?                               I will present some examples of artists, whose self-portraits betray some psychological aspects. I will start with Michelangelo, one of the greatest artists from the Renaissance period, who, according to an article published in 2004 in the Journal of Medical Biography, is supposed to have suffered from autism. A proof would be the difficulty of socializing with the others; that’s why he didn’t have many friends. Interesting is the fact he did not attend to  his brother’s funeral.

El Greco was diagnosed as a psychotic astigmatic; it was known that he was a consumer of hallucinogenic substances. This trend of elongation of the characters can be an effect of these factors.                                                                                                                            Francesco de Goya would have suffered from depression, his work revealing a great psychological suffering whose cause is supposed to be his deaf; this explains his isolation from the others. The artist spent  his dark period of life drawing monsters, terrible creatures in his residence called ,,The deaf’s house” (this name was given because of its former owner). Feuchtwanger, Goya’s biographer, describes the way Goya was trying to calm down by expressing his feelings in art: ,,He started drawing, gathering all his powers, trying to express his darkest thoughts on the paper (…) only in this manner he could get rid out of them(…) and they were no longer dangerous.”   Vincent van Gogh is supposed to have suffered from epilepsy, because of  the high consumption of absinthe, and also from syphilis. The doctor Mircea Beuran, claimed in one of  his lectures called ,,Medicine and painting ” that he cut off his ear due to Meniere’s Syndrome, because he was under the impression that he was hearing noises inside of his ear.  The critics of art concluded, according to the letters to his brother Theo, that he suffered from depression followed by manic states, which render a feeling of extreme passion towards painting. Others say that he suffered from schizophrenia. It would be interesting to point out that his brother Theo died of syphilis, his sister Willemina van Gogh suffered from dementia and another brother of his Cornelis Vincent committed suicide. I will also come up with an example from Romanian painting, sketching some ideas about Ion Ţuculescu. In his work there are encountered certain psychotic aspects. The writer Magda Cârneci characterizes him as having a  strong temper, being restless all the time, also being a prey to his obsessions and strange visions. In other words, Tuculescu was defined as an ,,expressionist artist.” This quote induces in a subtle way that he had a mental disorder. Although he had no specific studies in the fines arts field (he was microbiologist), Ţuculescu’s works have the force and the freshness of colour ( ,,Ţuculescu painted with blood. His strong colours scream in the viewer’s eye like some tropisms of the instincts.”[5]).  The artist uses in his painting geometric elements, folkloric elements, along with the eye, which is the essential element that is used very often. As for his artistic style, his work is at the limit between the figurative and the abstract style; the artist does not intend to paint the nature in a realistic manner, because he is more interested in revealing his inner world. Nature is presented thorough his artistic eyes. He confesses  ,,We are too turbulent to be contempted with pretty images; life is deep and     dramatic ”[6] .

As I’ve mentioned before, the eye is the most used plastic motif, which is also met in the titles of his works ,,God’s eyes”, ,,Glances”, ,,The eyes”, ,,The fields’eyes”, ,,Black eyes in an orange ocean”. Eyes are stylized, the  painter actually intending to convey the essence of his work. These repetitive elements are synthesized as the primitive symbolic paintings. The difference between  the  artists of this prehistorical period and the ones from the  modern period is that the painters from the first cathegory were not councious about their creation. Ţuculescu rejects deliberately the repetition of the plastic elements, thanks to its artistic sense. In fact, Ţuculescu blends  the primitivism style with the traditional  and also with the modern one.            Paul Gauguin also showed his great interest in this wonderful primitive art, that has no trace of civilization; this was the reason for which he dared to change his life totally and to go in an adventurous journey to the Tahiti Islands. Pablo Picasso was fascinated by the black art. One of the most important composers of the 20^th century Igor Strawinsky created the opera ,,Firebird” that shows the idea of ​​worshiping the natural forces by the pagans. Wassily Kandinsy, as a member of the etnographic mission, is pleasantly surprised by the Russian villages from the north part, that inspire him in his art. Diego Rivera is attracted by the pre-Columbian Mayan culture and by the ancient Aztec civilization. Constantin Brâncuşi gives rise to  extremely simple sculptural forms, also looking for the essence. His works seem to be very simple, but in fact the creations are based on an extremely profound concept. Ţuculescu’s intention is to represent the archaic elements in his sculptures, that have a primitive spirit. He has always seen the things beyond appearances, being used to  deepen them and to discover the truth.

As a conclusion, I sought nothing but to sketch some ideas about certain artists who lived in different periods  and to establish a link between the psychological facts and the artistic way of presenting thoughts and emotions through colours. It is particularly interesting and attractivein the same time, to analyze the connection between artists’ lives and their works of art, stating the idea that an artist is what he/she paints and viceversa.