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"Objectivism stands as the only secular antidote (and refutation) of Kantianism and postmodernism. In upholding and validating the reality of the external world, the efficacy of reason, and the objectivity of values, it provides the only modern and the only objective basis for attributing to man both freedom and dignity." Dr. Edwin Locke
Art and Mental Health by Sylvia Bokor
Frank J. Reilly was a well-known illustrator during the 1940s. During the 1950s he was a very popular teacher at the Art Students League in New York City. At his own school in the early 1960s, I was privileged to study with him for two years. During one of his lectures discussing the importance of intelligibility in painting, he told his class of the following incidents.
A mental hospital in New York
City regularly invited painters to decorate the common room during the
holiday season. Mr. Reilly and a number of other representational artists
covered the walls of the room with paintings of Pilgrims and Indians,
cute turkeys and giant pumpkins, jolly Santas, prancing reindeer, cheerful
elves and the like.
The administrative personnel remarked upon the affect of the paintings
on the patients: the patients were calmer, made better progress in their
therapy and were easier to deal with.
One year, someone at the hospital decided that the decoration should be more “up to date.” So, instead of representational artists, abstractionist painters were invited to decorate the common room. The abstractionists filled the walls with splashes, drips and swirls of color, plane figures and so forth characteristic of abstract painting.
The administrative personnel
reported the affect upon the patients: the patients became depressed and
more difficult to deal with. Some patients regressed in their treatment.
Some became catatonic. Unprovoked violence occurred.
The hospital returned to the use of representational paintings.
* * *
The above eloquently demonstrates the importance to mental health of art that intelligibly re-presents recognizable objects.
Man deals with reality by means
of objects. Whether the individual has difficulties dealing with various
aspects of living or not, to achieve certainty that things “out
there” can be dealt with efficaciously an individual must grasp
that existence exists independent of his consciousness. To put it another
way: Things exist; then the individual becomes conscious of them; then
he chooses to deal with them or not. This simple but crucially important
fact is basic to cognition. It is the foundation of objectivity, the method
that man must use in order to grasp and deal with reality appropriately.
Philosopher/novelist Ayn Rand wrote, “Art is a selective re-creation
of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments.”1
In painting, the use of recognizable object(s) intelligibly re-presented is essential to expressing values. It is only by means of objects that the artist can express his values and the viewer experience his. It is only by means of objects that shapes can be given form and therefore meaning, that subject can be delimited and therefore context established, that content can be stated and therefore values asserted.
In art, if what is shown is unintelligible, if it has no form, no subject or no content, the result is an implicit advocacy of nihilism. It is a shout of hatred declaring that reality is unknowable and fraught with confusion. It is not merely a flagrant contradiction in terms, it is also an attack on human consciousness. It is no wonder, therefore, that generally healthy individuals are not only bored stiff by such things, but also are uninspired. If the individual is uncertain of himself to begin with, and/or has difficulty dealing with various aspects of living, his exposure to such things frustrates and confuses him further, encouraging anguish, depression, withdrawal, or unwarranted violence.
In order to know that one can deal with reality, one must know that objects are what they are, that they have identity and that they exist independent of one’s mind. Such knowledge recognizes not only the absolutism of reality but also affirms the efficacy of man’s consciousness.
Objects are not a re-casting from some imaginary mold in some other dimension. They are not unreliable substitutes for something we cannot know. They are not arbitrary constructs. Things exist as attributes or qualities or properties or fields of objects. In the art of painting, for the artist to acknowledge this fact and to express his values by means of objects is a challenge and a joy. For the viewer, it is sustenance and reassurance.
On the most fundamental level,
recognizable objects intelligibly re-presented reassures the individual
that things have identity, that things can be dealt with—and dealt
with successfully. In the context of mental health, this is unsurpassable
encouragement for everyone, whether one has psychological problems or
not. It tells the individual: the world is a knowable place, you can understand
it, you can be efficacious.
Of all the values that representational art offers us, the re-presentation
of reality is fundamental. Mr. Reilly pointed out that “The eye
looks, the mind sees.” For all of us, whether we have psychological
problems or not, the intelligible re-presentation of recognizable object(s)
affirms that what the viewer looks at exists as something, that what he
sees can be evaluated. In this way, it states on a very fundamental level
that the individual is right for reality. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, the
intelligible re-presentation of recognizable objects provides psychological
“fuel” to reach one’s own goals. As such, it is a powerfully
positive incentive to face one’s problems, deal with them and improve
one’s life.
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Reference:
Rand, Ayn, The Romantic Manifesto, “The Psycho-epistemology of Art,”
The World Publishing Company, NY: 1969, p. 22.