Wenjie Chen
MA painting
How to view the spiritual dilemma of modern people?
Abstract
This article is about exploring how the state of the world today affects people's mental state. It observes the state of the world from the perspective of several artists, analyzes it from the individual to the collective and then to the individual, and seeks the answer to the problem through their practice. Because the style of artistic creation is closely related to people's views on mental problems. This proposition is rooted in a deep understanding of our age of anxiety and is a reflection of some of the problems of the moment. In the traditional, modern, Chinese, and western value system, human beings are often in a floating or swaying state. At the same time, as the desires of the new generation have changed dramatically, material satisfaction has not only failed to prevent the general growth of anxiety, but even aggravated it. Thee rapid development of information, the alienation of individuals and communities, the contradiction between meaning and meaninglessness. Are modern people facing a variety of pincers? Anxiety has been staged to some extent as collective behavior. In this mood, the panic and anxiety of the masses gradually spread. In contemporary society, due to the rapid development of science and technology, people are gradually instrumented, which leads to the question of their own value. At the same time, the relationship between people is also easy to become mutual use. How should we view the world properly? In what way should the meaning of life be explored?
Keywords: Spiritual dilemma, nihilism，contemporary, psychology, individuality, and collectivity
This paper will look at the world from the perspective of several painters (Lucian Freud，Djamel Tatah and Edward Hopper). Then analyze and discuss how the state of the world is formed, and how it affects the individual's emotional and mental state, as well as how the relationship between people is established and changed. In the modern world, the way people see and understand themselves and the world has changed. In fact, many of the problems are due to changes in people's understanding of the relationship between the self and the world. People often don't feel like they are who they really are, but they don't know how to be who they really are.
With the development of science and technology, people enter the virtual world from the real world and then return to the real world. What kind of impact will this transformation have on human social life? Do these technologies expand our living space or compress our living space? Is it a puzzle or liberation for people? In fact, it is not absolute, it is based on people's desire. What will people become in the future? Or can people dominate their own destiny?
Lucian Freud's grandfather is Sigmund Freud who is a psychologist, and he is also deeply influenced by his grandfather's psychology. His painting theory is from his grandfather. His grandfather's influence on the whole western art world is no less than his appeal in psychology. Therefore, Lucian's works pay attention to the spiritual predicament of human beings. He is a pioneer in the exploration and expression of human spirit and emotion. His works show the state of people's thinking after all the noise comes to peace. These people can not hide their fear of their calm on the surface. They have a deep thinking about the human situation after World War II: life and death, violence, and loneliness run through the works of Lucerne. (Figure 1.1)
Figure 1.1.The Refugees, Lucian Freud,1940-41
Because of the Jewish background, his family moved to London in 1933. In 1939, his grandfather died of illness. Lucian entered the Anglican painting school in England in his 17 years old. During this period, his paintings were influenced by surrealism, which had a kind of later sensitivity. He kept himself in a state of isolation and isolation, far away from the noise. He lived in seclusion and gradually formed his own style. He was born with suspicion, loneliness, and curiosity, and maintained a special perception ability of the world. In his place, vision is not only perception but also intuition, so the characters he painted are often distorted, neurotic, even ugly, which is a representation of the spiritual world, revealing human nature. Even his portrait of Queen Elizabeth II is not glamorous at all, as the media said at that time: "the queen is exhausted and her expression is cold."
Figure 1.2.Head of a boy, Lucian Freud,1956
His works are full of people with numb looks and dull eyes, which is the true portrayal of modern people. While modern people communicate and contact with each other through high-tech means, the original emotional communication with meaning and life has become cold and metallic with industrial society. Lucian's paintings let us see the real modern people: people are unconsciously in difficulties and gradually numb, unable to struggle.
Looking at contemporary people's life, the material level has been greatly improved, while the contradiction and crisis of people's spiritual life have gradually emerged. The increasing pressure of life, the lack of communication between people in modern society, and so on have caused the lack of people's spiritual life.
“The small group served as a basic survival medium which facilitated the production of the means of life as well as the reproduction of human life (Caporal, 2001; Tice& Baumeister, 2001). Having a collective place as a group as well as one's own individual place in the group was and still is crucial for survival. Like other social animals, people could not exist as isolated individuals because survival, both as a species and as an individual, requires coordinated and often cooperative action.”(Simon, 2004, p.11)
Therefore, people can not be separated from groups, because people are group animals. “Thus, if a predominantly other-directed individual were placed in an environment without peers, he might fall back on other patterns of direction. Similarly, it is clear that no individual, and assuredly no society.”(Riesman, 1961, p.27)
Freud (Lewis, 1981) thought that the social connectedness of human beings is central to their well- being(or their mental illness). However,
“It should be noted that the complementary relation of sociality and sociability does not imply that human relationships are necessarily harmonious.”(Simon, 2004, p.11)
Nietzsche believes that our modern world is full of weakness and hypocrisy. A group of weak people comes together to create false morality, while the real strength is demoted and excluded.
In this developing society, consumer society, mass culture, and civilian politics, the modern world picture. Everyone has to suppress their personality in the shackles of mass order and become a member of the masses. People are gradually alienated as robots. It is very difficult for robots to get happiness from their work because their work is just a repeated link in the process, an infinite cycle of life, and a lack of individual independence. The boredom of mechanical work and fear of life pressure is the spiritual dilemmas of modern people. Slowly, people also forget to think about the meaning of life. Meaning and nothingness are not a kind of entity, but a kind of feeling and people's feeling is largely affected by external factors. "Mass order forms a universal life machine, which is a devastating threat to the real human lifeworld," Jaspers said,” He must either on his own initiative independently gain possession of the mechanism of his life, or else, himself degraded to become a machine.” (Jaspers, 2010, p.176)
Figure 2. Untitled, Djamel Tatah
Djamel Tatah's works reflect this state of the world today, and his paintings contain individual and collective works. In his paintings of many people, most of them are in the same posture and expression, which is just like a state of society now. When people enter the collective, they lose their own uniqueness and gradually assimilate their behaviors and emotions. People in groups are like robots, repeating, and repeating. The facial expressions he painted were decadent and lifeless as if he had given in to the world. Le Bon (2002) in The Crowd pointed out that: “When an individual is an isolated individual, he has his own distinct individual characteristics. When the individual integrates into the group, all his personality will be submerged by the group, and his thoughts will be replaced by the group's thoughts immediately.” Djamel Tatah combines the traditional painting method with the contemporary color and describes the silent people with a unique composition. There are individuals and groups in his paintings, which are very emotional. He can experience the state and emotions of people in the world today from his paintings, such as loneliness, indifference, pain, entanglement, hesitation, etc.
In fact，The spiritual predicament of contemporary people mainly lies in "Nihilism", which causes loneliness, emptiness, anxiety，and strangeness. The nihility of value makes people confused about what is the real self. It is this kind of value nihility that causes the life crisis of contemporary people. In the era of value nihility, it is difficult to establish a deep and sincere emotional relationship between people. In Hannah Arendt's (Kundera, 1984)view, loneliness stems from the lack of objective relationships between people and others. In the individualized society, due to the lack of common goals and experience, the communication between people usually becomes superficial, meaningless, perfunctory, hypocritical, and not really open to exchange.
Modern people have become floating people without spiritual support, as if drifting on the distant and dark sea, losing their direction in life, so they have to go with the current and compromise to live.
Figure 3.Automat, Edward Hopper,1927
In Edward hopper's work (Automat, 1927), a woman sits alone in a room drinking coffee. It's dark outside. The room is very empty and the light is very bright. The lady's expression seems a little restrained and timid. She seems to want to integrate into real life. She does not want to be disturbed and at the same time, she wants to be understood. This kind of inner contradiction is very strong. This makes the viewer involuntarily imagine the story about her. Hopper makes us feel her feelings, compare our hearts, and imagine her situation. The cafeteria is a painting about sadness - but it's not sad. Although the space is simple, the scene itself is not bleak. Maybe there are other people in the room, who are also far away from the noise and the society. They all drink coffee and meditate alone. This is a kind of loneliness shared by all. For anyone who is alone, it can effectively alleviate the depression brought by loneliness.
Arranged in such public places, instead, let people find a unique sense of community. For those who are lonely, the small restaurant, waiting room, and Motel open all day are like their shelter, and the bright light is like warmth in their heart. Edward hope's work is full of sadness, but it will not make the audience sad. Loneliness is the core theme of his art. It seems that the characters in his paintings are all single, far away from home, or at the bedside, at the window. The characters' expressions all reveal frailty and contemplation.
With the existence of architecture and characters in the picture, there are always those strong lights and shadows, which also become the key for artists to create a lonely atmosphere. From his childhood, Hopper has been fascinated by the sunlight that casts into his room. As a painter, he is particularly good at using the large area of light with a strong contrast between light and shade to present the thinking of reality. The quiet sunshine projected into the room outside the window, completely detached from the city's complexity, indicates the spiritual state of modern people's alienation. What's unique in the picture is its strong light and shadow. Since childhood, Hopper has been fascinated by the sunlight projected in the room. As a painter, he is particularly good at using the large area of light with a strong contrast between light and shade to present the thinking of reality, which also implies the spiritual state of alienation of modern people.
Edward's painting is like this. Maybe loneliness is an eternal human situation. Maybe there is no salvation or end, only slow struggle, and compromise. Maybe people have accepted it, they have not escaped it.
“Nietzsche observed that human beings would rather will nothingness than not will. If all of the values in culture are rooted in nihilism, this would mean that everyone would rather be a nihilist than refrain from living. ”（Schutte, 1984，p4）
In general, it is assimilation and nothingness of values that cause the crisis of contemporary life. Jaspers（2010）made a comprehensive analysis of this spiritual crisis in his book. He referred to this spiritual condition as "the nihilistic turn of the zeitgeist". In his view, the initialization of spiritual life is manifested as "the degradation of essential human nature to ordinary human nature, to the physical vitality as a function, and to trivial pleasures. The meaning of life has always been the most important proposition in human life. How people endure the meaninglessness in their lives while continuing to survive is of vital importance. How we should view the world and examine our own relationship with the world has been a constant topic, which requires people to face it with great courage and seek solutions.
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