Why we need sad songs or how sad art can heal you
Arts & humanities as a self-help tool Vol.II
In these blog series I share with you how arts & humanities are a therapeutic tool always available to us.
by Eleni Denephelis
My dear seekers of truth and beauty,
While studying Latin in high school, I discovered that culture derives from the Latin colere, which means to tend to the earth and grow, cultivate, and nurture. A naïve discovery of a teenager yet extremely illuminating as culture serves no other purpose than to nourish us. Just like another mother, culture tends to us to grow us, not physically, but emotionally. Our great Mother, created in Lascaux caves by human hands, shows her majestic wisdom in our creativity.
Our great Mother, created in Lascaux caves by human hands, shows her majestic wisdom in our creativity.
Though arts are respectfully regarded as the manifestation of human intellectual achievement, it’s my suggestion that it hasn’t reached its high point yet. When it’s regarded collectively as a universal healing tool, our civilization would genuinely value the arts. Art is a therapeutic tool for oneself and also for society. When we recognize that entering a big dark room to witness collectively on the big screen the most dishonorable intimate moments of human suffering only to understand the human condition better, we’ll be at the peak of our civilization. Then we’ll go back to its purest expression into the Lascaux caves. As the latter reveals to us, visual communication is inherent to our survival strategy. Our need to create and connect through culture is equal to our need for food and shelter.
Religion and art were allied from the very beginning as both offered humanity a moral compass and relief to excruciating despair. They both serve a social healing purpose -when dogma is left aside.
Hereafter, it doesn’t come as a surprise that theatre, as its roots from the Greek tragedy, started as an extension of the ancient rites to honor the God Dionysus. Religion and art were allied from the very beginning as both offered humanity a moral compass and relief to excruciating despair. They both serve a social healing purpose -when dogma is left aside.
In tragedy, failure doesn’t diminish the hero’s worth or our empathy towards him or her, but it intensifies it.
At the God Dionysus’ festival, various offerings were made for the gods, one of which was the actual play, a tragedy focused on pure human suffering. "Why would anyone on earth gift such a thing?" a millennial might wonder in our times. The unique thing that tragedy did is that it looked directly at human misery at its face. There’s no other art form that’s so unwavering about it until today. This is why its topics rise beyond cultural and temporal boundaries; human misery is universal. Moreover, in his Poetics, Aristotle describes the method of a perfect tragedy as having a good hero, but yet, not too virtuous. Why is that? Because we all can relate because we all try to do our best in life, yet we fail. In tragedy, failure doesn’t diminish the hero’s worth or our empathy towards him or her, but it intensifies it.
According to Aristotle, Katharsis is an intense purification and purgation of our passions through an extreme change in emotion that produces renewal and restoration. For that function, tragic stories restore our emotional balance.
Most importantly, tragedy teaches us that we’re not worthless when we don’t achieve our goals. We learn to detach from the outcome of our dreams. The tears we shed in the end cause us katharsis. According to Aristotle, the latter is an intense purification and purgation of our passions through an extreme change in emotion that produces renewal and restoration. For that function, tragic stories restore our emotional balance.
In a world divided by ruthless competition, the tragic art form is more important than ever. How many times, particularly in America -the homeland of the cheery self-help empire- I’ve heard that sad songs and sad art are useless. “Can’t he do something cheerful? This is so unproductive?’’ someone cried at me in utter disappointment when I expressed my adoration for Gregory’s Crewdson photography. I responded that his art is vital to counterbalance the jolly American dream as it demonstrates so vibrantly what I’ve heard him saying in a documentary: “Most Americans live lives of quiet desperation.” In his beautifully staged tableaux crafted from a cold color palette, everyone seems tremendously vulnerable, deserted, and sorrowful in plain sight. We witness our mutual shameful moments, and that leads to the katharsis of the darkest of our feelings.
Mostly, and even though it’s harrowing to look at human misery, we feel much less lonely and much less odd in the end.
Someone might correctly argue here that we’re used to negativity as that was our brain’s mechanism to survive since we lived in tribes. However, we’re always terribly exposed to tragedies, our mortal bodies are still breakable, and death remains our common fate we must face completely and painfully alone. Therefore, sad art resonates in us as it helps us accept and connect with our worldly human condition. That was God's role in tragic plays, always accountable for the suffering on earth; humans were mere mortals and constantly susceptible to disasters.
Facing the abyss and weeping over the cruelty of being human purges even the bleakest of our feelings. Yet, we always find relief in our crying and feeling sorry for the poor tragic hero that could be us. Mostly, and even though it’s harrowing to look at human misery, we feel much less lonely and much less odd in the end. This is because so many souls have suffered worse than us, and “Yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new
In city and in forest they smiled like me and you” in Leonard Cohen’s verses.
Jesus crucified is such a powerful image precisely because it’s a tremendously tragic piece of art overflowing with vulnerability: even the son of God has suffered the worst.
Staring straight and truthfully at human suffering humanizes and softens humans. So, when I refer to the healing power of art, I include all kinds of it: cheerful, tragic, sad, abstract, satiric, erotic, etc., as all human emotions have value. We’re not immune to any of them. Unfortunately, I assume that we’ve entirely lost this art form's weight in a more and more culturally illiterate and politically correct world. In an online article, I read that Antigone is such a bad example for kids because she’s a criminal and concluded that we shouldn’t be watching this play anymore. That brings to mind the collective absurdity about censoring great works of art because of nipples or violence in social media.
Yet, isn’t Jesus crucified on display an ultra-violent image? I used to cry each time I watched a crucified Jesus when I was a kid. After all, he was just an innocent right person crucified -after days of dreadful tortures- and pierced on the cross, wearing a crown full of thorns to intensify his suffering further. It could be a scene from a horror movie. Yet, Jesus crucified is such a powerful image precisely because it’s a tremendously tragic piece of art overflowing with vulnerability: even the son of God has suffered the worst.
We’re deeply flawed humans ready to surrender to pure madness when a tragedy knocks at our door. And this is okay.
We might have lost our ability to discern what art is for when haunted by the current belief the world is somehow ruled by merit or justice; we desperately and collectively wanted to prove that we’re perfect -if we only tried hard enough. We’re not; we’re deeply flawed humans ready to surrender to pure madness when a tragedy knocks at our door. And this is okay. How can someone not grieve over the loss of a child, an unexpected degenerative illness, a global pandemic or complete impoverishment? The helpful question is, how long will we repent, and how will we pour the toxicity out of our body and psyche? Tragic art and some sad songs would help us do this inner work, particularly for those of us who feel too much.
Tragic art and some sad songs would help us do this inner work, particularly for those of us who feel too much.
Till the next post, may Eros and wisdom be with you,
