Developments in Especially the Work of Sigmund Freud Influenced Modern Art

Abstract

The psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalytic school, especially his "unconsciousness" theory and "libido" theory has a profound positive or negative influence on aesthetic theory , specially the theory of artful creation and criticism. This paper attempts to tease out some of its effects and make some analysis and evaluation.

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Jiang, Y. (2019) On the Influence of Freudian Psychoanalysis on Aesthetics. Open Admission Library Journal, 6, 1-6. doi: 10.4236/oalib.1105993.

1. An Introduction to Freud and His Works

Every bit an Austrian psychiatrist, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is a very important modern scholar in humanity and social science field. He successively published The Estimation of Dreams (1900), Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Totem and Taboo (1913), The Ego and the Id (1923), Culture and Its Defects (1929), and other works since 1900, creating the psychoanalytic school which has fabricated a far-reaching influence in the twentieth century. The Interpretation of Dreams offers 3 perspectives. First, dreams are a spiritual activity arising out of desires, and their contents are "the fulfillment of wishes"; 2d, the dream is the subconscious self-expression: do everything possible to break through the pre-conscious field to emerge; 3rd, dreams are similar to psychosis in that both adjust to the activity of the unconscious mind. Through the techniques of psychoanalysis, the book Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality makes a systematic analysis and research on the trouble of sex past using the actual information of treating patients. Every bit an anthropological and psychoanalytic work, Totem and Taboo focuses on incest'southward fear, taboo and ambivalence, Sprite theory, the omnipotence of witchcraft and thought, and totem worship's reappearance in childhood. The Ego and The Id is an important treatise on the revision, supplement and development of psychoanalysis past Freud in his afterwards period; this volume deeply expounds human instinct, group psychology, id, ego, superego and other concepts and their mutual relations. Civilization and Its Defects offers a rational analysis based on psychoanalytic perspective on the development of western social club, culture and culture, faith and other issues. Although his students and successors Jung, Adler, Lacan and other scholars constantly revised and even overturned his theory, Freud, as the originator of classical psychoanalysis, had a great influence on psychology, philosophy, art and many other fields. For example, Freudian psychoanalysis created many new academic fields such as personality psychology, dynamic psychology and abnormal psychology etc., and promoted the evolution of self-psychology. Freud's theory of the unconscious plays a very important role in the whole modern western philosophy, based on the unconscious theory, he established an unprecedented system of psychological philosophy, a psychoanalytic theory almost unconscious activities, and he himself is called the father of the unconscious. Because of his great contribution to academic idea, he became one of the iii great thinkers in the mod world, together with Marx and Nietzsche. In view of the limitation of didactics, this paper does not intend to systematically discuss the whole psychoanalytic theory, but only intends to make a rough analysis of the influence of Freudian psychoanalytic theory on aesthetics.

2. A Full general Introduction to Freud's Theory

Before nosotros begin, I retrieve we demand to requite a general introduction to Freud'south theory. The most prominent feature of Freudian psychoanalysis is the discovery of the unconscious. When he studied the human psychological structure, he found that the homo psychological structure can be divided into iii layers, namely the unconscious, the preconscious and the conscious. To illustrate their effects, he likens the man encephalon to an iceberg in the bounding main, noting that "the conscious function is like the piddling office higher up the surface of the sea; The part of preconsciousness that is at sea level, rising and falling with the waves of the water; The unconscious is the vast bulk of the body submerged in the sea." [one] Through this instance, he vividly illustrates the authorisation of the unconscious in man consciousness. In response, he proposed the famous structure theory of the triple personality (eide, ego, superego), indicating that anybody has such a triple personality, and cited a large number of literary characters to prove that human behavior in well-nigh cases is controlled by eide (id). Another of import theory of Freud was his libido theory. Libido refers to the latent energy associated with the sexual instinct, which was later on expanded to an instinctive desire to live, to seek pleasure and to escape hurting, and to the motivational force of the living instinct as opposed to the death instinct. Libido theory is really based on the theory of the unconscious. He points out that human motivation and desire, especially sexual desire (libido), mostly exist in the unconscious. Through deeper research, he further points out that anybody, even including infants, have sexual impulse, a special functioning on zipper to parents, which he chosen "Oedipus circuitous". Still, bound by the superego, the vast bulk of people volition choose other ways to vent this lust, such every bit, they will choose writing cosmos of fine art and literature. Moreover, in The Interpretation of Dreams, he has brilliantly analyzed the mechanics of dreams: in dreams, one thing is condensed into something else, i person is replaced by another, and the dreamer'south wishes are frequently fulfilled in disguise [2]. In this style, Freud established his own huge system centering on the theory of the unconscious, and opened upwardly a wide field of vision for the study of other disciplines. However, Freud'southward unconscious theory emphasizes too much on human biology and man instinct, ignoring human being sociality and the decisive influence of social and cultural surroundings on human behavior, which has sure limitations.

Though Freud's theory was later constantly revised by many scholars, including his students, but its influence is also almost ranging throughout the twentieth century worldwide. Every bit American psychologist Erich Fromm said: "Indeed, not Freud first discovered the phenomenon of the subconscious, but Freud was first discovered in this phenomenon equally the heart has established the system of psychology. He studied deeply and in detail the subconscious phenomenon, fabricated amazing achievements." [3] There is no doubt that Freudian psychoanalysis is worthy of serious studied, whether in psychology, art or otherwise. Below, we should discuss its influence for aesthetic theory, especially about the aesthetic art branch.

iii. The Influence of Freudian Psychoanalysis on Aesthetics

Freudian psychoanalysis has a profound influence on aesthetics. He put forward some enlightening views on aesthetic art such as literary cosmos and literary criticism, etc. For example, Freud believed that libido is the motive force of artful cosmos, and the essence of fine art lies in the "sublimation" of artists' repressed sexual instinct. Artists, whose instinct has been suppressed by consciousness for a long time and cannot be satisfied, try to express it in the course of literary creation and finally obtain a satisfying happiness. Therefore, their creation motivation is "sexual impulse". Through sublimation, the repressed libido gets the release way and form permitted by social morality. Thus the part of literature and art was interpreted by him as a compensatory function. At the same time, he based on a famous ancient Greek tragedy The Rex Oedipus to create the important concept of the so-called "Oedipus complex" which is a common feeling in the human being unconsciousness and an important root of the artists creative impulses. Hence, mother (father) complex is the eternal subject of aesthetic expression. He as well equates writers with dreamers, holding that daydreaming is the activity mode of artists' aesthetic creation, and that literature and fine art are similar to dreams, and that literature and art are nothing merely unconscious desires or a symbol of sex, which are writers' daydreams. The vast bulk of dreams are afterwards the modification and transformation, and modification and transformation is the basic method of artistic creation. These views and revisions of them by later generations led directly to the emergence of a new aesthetic school, psychoanalytic aesthetics.

Now let's wait at Freud's contribution to aesthetics from the post-obit aspects:

According to Freud'south theory of the unconscious, consciousness and the unconscious are opposites. Consciousness suppresses the unconscious instinct impulse, so that it can only get the disguised and symbolic satisfaction; unconsciousness is the basic motive forcefulness of psychological activities, which secretly dominates consciousness. The theory of unconsciousness reveals the complexity and hierarchy of human psychology, guides people to pay attention to the motive behind consciousness, and probes into the influence of unconscious psychology on homo behavior, which has played a great part in enlightening writers and critics in the 20^th century. Literary artists no longer stay in the expression of human being consciousness, but go deep into the unfathomable unconscious field to explore the mysteries of the listen and reveal the rich inner earth of human being. Information technology tin be said that the theory of the unconscious opens upwards a broader field of expression for the creative theory of art (peculiarly literature), expands the space of the inner world of the characters, and raises the psychoanalytic technique in literary works to a new level. Every bit to the performance in the field of western literary creation, even many Chinese literatures in the 1920-30s and 1980s, a lot of unconscious activities take expressed as the main focus in many swell works like Joyce'southward Finnegans Wake. Of course, the theory of the unconscious brings not only positive things to the artful field, just too many negative effects such as belittling the office of consciousness and rationality

According to his theory of triple personality structure and "libido," Freud held a pansexual view in literary creation and criticism, that is, he regarded sexual want as the motivation of literary cosmos. Writers and artists are driven by their "instinctive desires"―their "sexual urges". He went on to fence that literature and art were essentially a "sublimation" of repressed sexual impulses. Through sublimation, the repressed libido can exist satisfied past means or forms permitted past social morality. Co-ordinate to this "sublimation theory," the part of literature and art is interpreted every bit a compensation part. Writers and readers' unfulfilled desires in real life tin can be satisfied through cosmos or appreciation of literary and creative works. At the same fourth dimension, the concept of the Oedipus complex, which he derived from the libido theory and the theory of personality, was besides regarded by him equally a universal truth. Taking Sophocles' The Male monarch Oedipus, Shakespeare's Hamlet and Dostoevsky's Karamazov Brothers as examples, he applied this theory to the field of literary research, which had a neat influence on western literary creation and criticism. The literature and art creation domain describes this kind of aberrant emotion and the work also arises at this historic moment. Information technology should exist noted that "Oedipus complex" cannot be used to explicate all phenomena of aesthetic creation, even if it can become a motif of literary creation. If nosotros have it equally an irrefutable truth and ignore the decisive office of social life in artful creation, we will autumn into a ridiculous and pathetic state of affairs.

In addition, according to his dream interpretation theory, Freud believed that literature, art and dreams had many common characteristics. Secondly, the human relationship between the content of the dream and the subconsciousness is merely like the relationship between the form and the meaning of literary works. Literature and dream are in fact a substitute, a spiritual miracle with full value. Thirdly, the method of dream interpretation is like to that of literary criticism, which is to notice and reveal the "potential" meaning. Based on this, he divided artists into ii categories: those who, like the ancient writers of heroic epics, accustomed ready-made fabric. The other is artistic writers, who create their ain fabric. He thought that the latter kind of imaginative and creative artists were similar to dreamers under the "broad daylight," and further pointed out that literary creation was just a daydream of artists. His views have sure positive significance for artful cosmos: they inspire artists to interruption through the boundaries of existent life, give full play to their creativity and subjectivity, and create imaginative works of art. But we should also know that his theory of dream interpretation is incomplete in itself, and cannot fully explain the crusade of dreams.

At the aforementioned time, the influence of Freudian psychoanalysis on aesthetics is not only shown in the above positive aspects, simply also has some negative effects. On the one hand, due to the excessive worship of the Oedipus complex, some scholars blindly interpret literary and artistic works with far-fetched estimation, thus mistakenly interpreting some works with strong social characteristics from the perspective of physiological instinct. On the other paw, by mechanically attributing all artistic cosmos to sexual instinct, some people "exaggerating a right theory to the indicate of absolute eroticism," and denying the materialistic fact that artistic creation is a "reflection of the phenomenon of homo social life," they autumn into an idealist trap of artistic cosmos. Therefore, while fully affirming the academic contribution of Freudian psychoanalysis, we should exist soberly aware that nosotros cannot completely rely on it to guide our creation and theoretical research.

4. Conclusion

In short, Freud became the originator and chief of psychoanalysis for his pioneering work, and had a great influence on the theoretical field in the 20^th century. In the field of aesthetic fine art, specially literary creation and interpretation, although his theory still has its own inevitable defects, it greatly broadens people's vision and expands the field of artful research. This paper summarizes, analyzes and makes some comments on the primary viewpoints of Freudian psychoanalysis, and points out the contribution and negative influence of this theory to the theory of aesthetic creation. Since the thinking of this newspaper is limited to the theory of aesthetic creation, and the profound influence of Freudian psychoanalysis on the whole modernistic aesthetic theory is still little explored, information technology should be said that the discussion is not in-depth plenty. This is one of the questions that we need to explore further.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

References

[ane]	朱立元 (1997) 当代西方文艺理论. 上海: 华东师范大学出版社.
[2]	Freud, S. (1900) The Estimation of Dreams. 朱更生, 译. 杭州: 浙江工商大学出版社.
[3]	Fromm, E. (1979) Greatness and Limitation of Freud's Thought. 申荷永, 译. 长沙: 湖南人民出版社.

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Source: https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=97442

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