Suffering as Art and Pain Found Within Beauty

kristyann

Hey everyone, I am working on a paper that I am writing for school. I know where I want to go with it. I am taking a short story that I have read and want to point out the fact that it shows suffering as art, and it shows that there is a type of beauty within pain. The problem is, I want to compare it to other works of art (books, music, films, paintings, sculptures, etc.) that portray this "suffering as art" type of concept. I know that there are many of them, but I want really good examples to use in my paper. Anyone have any really good examples of suffering as a form of art, or pain as a form of beauty, maybe something that is a favorite to you? Sorry to always bother you all with my crazy questions!

kristyann

Or...does anyone have any good quotes conveying this theme? By the way, I know it's not the most exciting topic... but I hope this thread won't turn out like the kind JH referred to earlier... the kind where you post and then no one responds! I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Tyrone van leyen

Google" mixed nuts famous depressives" You will find there a list of people who suffered through mental ilnesses. Everything from Kurt Cobain to Vincent Vangogh and poets as well. Then just Google there names and you should find all the examples you need.

JH

I hope this thread won't turn out like the kind JH referred to earlier

No, it won't

Here is a heart attack form of art Does this qualify?

Or maybe this one....lol

RichieRich

KristyAnn,

I suggest you research tattooing, body piercing, play piercing, suspension, and kavadi. Look for the last three first.

A good resource for information is www.bmezine.com.

tall penguin

Okay, I've been thinking about this since you first posted. Not sure this is what you're looking for. Perhaps these are more examples of suffering for art, or suffering while creating. The "tortured artist" thing.

I finally saw "Walk The Line" about Johnny Cash. His life is such a picture of suffering tied to art. His music is filled with such angst and bittersweet emotion. For me, this feeling is typified in one of the last videos he did before his death, his rendition of the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt". This makes me cry every time I watch it. Have a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go

Along the same lines, the film "Ray" about Ray Charles' life is another example of a suffering artist. Or "Pollock".

May not be what you're looking for. If you can be more clear, perhaps let me know what the short story you've read is, or what it's about, or outline your main thesis for me, I may be able to help further.

tall penguin

zanex

im with richie on the piercing thing...tattooists have been making their bodies art canvasses for years...

(z of the artistically pierced class)

Narkissos

Pain is ubiquitous in art (you'd sooner point where it is not) but it is approached from a lot of different angles and aesthetics...

Greek tragedy, increasingly expressive in its later form (Euripides); Christian martyrdom scenes and stories, starting with crucifixion; the influence of pietism in sacred music (Bach's cantatas and passions); the erotism of suffering (Sade); all of romanticism; the dismembered body in modern and contemporary art, expressionist, realist or otherwise (Schiele, Munch, Picasso, Bacon)... you name it.

You may also google for "dolorism".

freedomloverr

google * salvador dali*

Narkissos

Just reminds me of the last vision in Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha:

He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha, instead he saw
other faces, many, a long sequence, a flowing river of faces, of
hundreds, of thousands, which all came and disappeared, and yet all
seemed to be there simultaneously, which all constantly changed and
renewed themselves, and which were still all Siddhartha. He saw the
face of a fish, a carp, with an infinitely painfully opened mouth, the
face of a dying fish, with fading eyes--he saw the face of a new-born
child, red and full of wrinkles, distorted from crying--he saw the face
of a murderer, he saw him plunging a knife into the body of another
person--he saw, in the same second, this criminal in bondage, kneeling
and his head being chopped off by the executioner with one blow of his
sword--he saw the bodies of men and women, naked in positions and cramps
of frenzied love--he saw corpses stretched out, motionless, cold, void--
he saw the heads of animals, of boars, of crocodiles, of elephants, of
bulls, of birds--he saw gods, saw Krishna, saw Agni--he saw all of these
figures and faces in a thousand relationships with one another, each one
helping the other, loving it, hating it, destroying it, giving re-birth
to it, each one was a will to die, a passionately painful confession of
transitoriness, and yet none of then died, each one only transformed,
was always re-born, received evermore a new face, without any time
having passed between the one and the other face--and all of these
figures and faces rested, flowed, generated themselves, floated along
and merged with each other, and they were all constantly covered by
something thin, without individuality of its own, but yet existing, like
a thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin, a shell or mold or mask of
water, and this mask was smiling, and this mask was Siddhartha's smiling
face, which he, Govinda, in this very same moment touched with his lips.
And, Govinda saw it like this, this smile of the mask, this smile of
oneness above the flowing forms, this smile of simultaneousness above
the thousand births and deaths, this smile of Siddhartha was precisely
the same, was precisely of the same kind as the quiet, delicate,
impenetrable, perhaps benevolent, perhaps mocking, wise, thousand-fold
smile of Gotama, the Buddha, as he had seen it himself with great
respect a hundred times. Like this, Govinda knew, the perfected ones
are smiling.

Suffering as Art and Pain Found Within Beauty

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