Sigmund Freud and his Technicolor Dreamcoat

Sigmund Freud. A name that has become synonymous with psychology and well known even to the everyday person. If you know anything more than his name, then you certainly know that he was obsessed with sex, or so it would seem.

He linked almost everything to sex. He claimed that "sexual desire is at the core of human emotion." Whether or not this is true, we can only guess. But what seems altogether more likely is that it was false; perhaps this was just how he saw himself, the person that he best understood, and he projected this onto others as well. Perhaps it was only Freud who was all about sex.

Anyhow, this week's lecture was definitely interesting; perhaps more so than some of the earlier ones. The name of Freud is well known, and Jung is familiar, but the name of Adler is a more abstract one. It is interesting that the three most famous psychiatrists/psychologists of this era came from the same place and the same group, rather than developing ideas independent of each other. While their ideas turned out differently, they all seemed to start from the same point.

For my creative act, I have applied my limited knowledge of the Bible to my more extensive knowledge of Google search, and, with my newfound information, created a short narrative where the Pharaoh has his dreams interpreted, not by Joseph, but by Sigmund Freud.

That night, the Pharaoh had a dream; a dream of seven lean cows that rose from the river and devoured seven fat cows. He dreamt also of seven withered ears of grain that devoured seven fat ears of corn. The Pharaoh asked his wise men to interpret the dream, but none could; but the Pharaoh heard had heard of a common man, named Freud, who called himself a Psychiatrist. Pharaoh sent for Freud and asked him to interpret the dream.

Freud told the Pharaoh that his dreams were signs of sexual repression; the corn represented the penis, being the same shape, and the varying sizes and thicknesses of the corncobs symbolized his own feelings of sexual inadequacy.

Freud also told the Pharaoh that the dreams of the cattle signified the strength of his id; it was a part of his unconscious mind that was running wild. He was having a difficult time repressing his urges to mindlessly slaughter cattle as an extension of his id.

Freud was thrown off of the pyramids. Pharaoh sent for Joseph.

Colorfield Microsoft Painting

Greetings to the readers of my blog; all two or three of you. Perhaps I should begin to advertise this blog as a blog of higher learning, so as to attract more visitors. But no matter, on to more important things. High art was never for the masses, anyways.

In accordance with our lecture by Dr. Catherine Harding, I today present to you my masterpiece /weekly creative act, in the field of "color field art". Perhaps my piece is more literal than my predecessors, but I see it as an evolution. But enough of the disclaimers.

Of course, in its current form, it is difficult to see all of its intricacies, but I shall explain them as best I can. This is my magnum opus "Life: A Trilogy with an Epilogue". It represents the three main stages of life, in addition to the short stage known as old age but here referred to as the Epilogue.

The first stage contains the green innocence and wide open mind of a child, the second the futile rebellion and new permanent tendencies of the teenagers, and the third represents the grey, narrow rut of middle age. The Epilogue is both grey and green, as the elderly try to reconnect with their childhoods despite their aged bodies. This area is also speckled with death, the small black dots, which are finally realized at the far right of the piece, solidifying into one black line.

As you can see, this "painting" is rife with meaning. During the planning stage, it took me at least an hour to conceive of completely. The execution of this masterpiece, however, took less than ten minutes. Had I the time and resources, I would have actually painted it, and even with my limited skill it would take mere hours to paint.

Is it the thought that makes the art? Dr. Harding would tell us so. But I would contest that, without the appropriate technical ability to match the underlying thought, it is not art, or at the very least, not high art. The paintings of the colorfield masters were less than impressing to me; the idea was there, and the emotion, but the technical ability seemed lacking. I am not one to say what is or isn't skill in painting, but I can tell you that, given fingerpaints in the correct colors, a toddler could make a work of the same quality, as long as the thought has already been provided by an adult. Any work can be made to mean anything by an observer, so what is the value of the thought anyways?

In closing, I would like to say that, while technical ability is not as important to visual art as the thought behind it, it is, nonetheless, important. This just may be my final visitation to the world of visual art; I hope you view my final work as the last gift of a master.

Lecture Response

[NOTE - NOVEMBER 24 - THIS IS NOT ONE OF THE SEVEN ENTRIES I'VE SUBMITTED FOR MARKS. THEY CAN BE FOUND ABOVE THIS POST]

For a nice change, today's creative act will be a response to our first three lectures.

After hearing lectures from several of our guest speakers, I must say that I am not always agreeing with the words from the podium. I suppose my disagreement is good; it shows that I am thinking for myself, which, after all, is the point of this course. But some of what is being said comes across as weird to me, and I'm not sure if it is because I'm enlightened, or rather, because I'm closed-minded.

For example, when discussing the value of art, we first must decide: what is art? Well, as any layman who has ventured into a MoMA can attest, modern art is weird for weird's sake. It causes you to think, all right, but for all of the wrong reasons. For an example, let us use a work exhibited in the Georges Pompidou Centre for modern art in Paris as an example (see picture).

We see that the work consists of nothing except for three panels, covered completely in white. The artist says that this is a statement of nothingness. I say that it is weird for weird's sake.

What makes this piece special? Is it technical accomplishment? Of course not; any house painter could create such a "work of art." Some would say that its value lies in the originality of its concept; as if an artist leaving a canvas blank was something new.

Does this piece have any value? Perhaps it separates the merely curious from the hardcore artistic, because surely anybody who is on the fence regarding the value of modern art would be pushed onto the side of detractor by this piece.

What traditionally made art valuable was beauty of craftsmanship and the technical ability of the artist. And though it is true that the rigidness of medieval and Renaissance art was its drawback, the works are still popular today because of the ability of the artist.

Look at the picture again. Is it art if anyone could paint it? You could paint it, given three buckets of paint, three panels and three hours.

No, I don't consider myself closed-minded. I just believe that art, especially as far as paintings go, has gone too far in its quest for the weird. That goes for poets who write purposely nonsensical randomness and musicians who hammer on clashing semitones and call it high art. The best kind of art is original AND technical; otherwise, who's to say what's a masterpiece?

PS. Computer problems pushed this entry back a day. Consider this week 3's post.