What is a poet? An unhappy man who in his heart harbors a deep anguish, but whose lips are so fashioned that the moans and cries which pass over them are transformed into ravishing music. … And men crowd about the poet and say to him, “Sing for us soon again”—which is as much as to say, “May new sufferings torment your soul, but may your lips be fashioned as before; for the cries would only distress us, but the music, the music, is delightful.”
—Søren Kierkegaard
The American Psychological Association (APA) defines self-expression as “free expression of one’s feelings, thoughts, talents, attitudes, or impulses …” Self-expressive art, by this definition, is art in which a person strives to express their inner experiences—feelings, thoughts, emotions, ideas—by artistic means.
Two aspects of self-expressive art are worth highlighting as they may not be obvious from the definition. First, self-expressive art can only be created by human beings. This is because computers, AI, and other technologies—even if their output may qualify as art—don’t have selves or feelings to express. Second, self-expressive art must depart from strictly realistic depictions: it must be deliberately designed and rendered with the goal of expressing private, inner states, rather than just to convey outer appearances.
The latter point is especially important when we consider the role of aesthetic beauty in expressive art. Works of expressive art may—and most often do—possess great beauty. But in such works, beauty serves as a means of expression, not as the thing expressed—the subject of the work. When used expressively, beauty is intended to arouse in viewers the artist’s intended emotional effect, not just an appreciation for the obvious, inherent prettiness of an object or scene. This, in turn, suggests an important characteristic of beauty: it may be used to express a broad range of feelings, from euphoric joy to heartbreaking sadness, from peacefulness to terror-inducing awe, with many subtle variations in between, only some of which may have word equivalents (contentment, melancholy, wistfulness, bliss, trepidation, dread, etc.).
Given that photographic tools are by design intended to “capture” realistic-looking appearances as-is, it may seem that photography may be an unsuitable medium for self-expression, but this is not the case. Even if a photographer chooses to adhere closely to realistic appearances, photographs may still be composed, and employ unique qualities of natural light and colors, as to produce images with great expressive power, rather than merely depict a scene or an object as any random person would have seen them. However, due to the mechanics of the photographic medium, and common expectations of realism, it is also true, alas, that, as Ansel Adams noted, “it is harder to make a masterpiece in photography than in any other art medium.”
(Anecdotally, Adams’s statement is easy to demonstrate by asking people to name well-known photographic artists, then asking these same people to name some well-known photographs created by these photographers. It is my contention that photography differs from other artistic media in this sense: there seem to be more famous photographers than there are famous photographs. In other media, the opposite is true: people familiar with a famous artist can usually also name several works made by that artist.)
It is commonly believed that the goal of self-expression in art is, as Leo Tolstoy put it, “the infection of others with the feelings the artist has experienced.” Or, in photography, to create “equivalent” photographs in the sense that Alfred Stieglitz described as, “to record something so completely that those who see it will relive an experience of what had been expressed.”
Beyond perhaps very simplistic and obvious expressions, I think that expecting perfect parity between an artist’s feelings and those experienced by viewers is naïve, if not outright impossible, no matter how skilled the artist is in artistic expression. This is because there is no guarantee that an artist and a viewer will have the exact same sensibilities, or that they will intuitively associate the same symbolic/metaphorical meanings with an artwork. Each viewer inevitably brings to the experience of encountering artworks what E.H. Gombrich describes as their “beholder’s share.” Meaning in art, for any given person, arises from the combination of the beholder’s share and the artist’s share.
It is sometimes considered the role of art critics to help educate and hone beholders’ shares: to help beholders understand and relate to the meaning of an artwork as intended by the artist. While undoubtedly valuable, we must be cautious about such criticism. Even if successful—even if as viewers we come to understand what an artist intended to express—we must still treat this understanding as just one form of meaning, and must always feel ourselves free to substitute our own meaning for the artist’s if it elevates our experience of the art. For example, much religious-inspired art may be profoundly meaningful to nonreligious viewers; much nature-inspired art may be meaningful to non-naturalists; much art inspired by specific historical events may be meaningful to people who choose to associate the art with different events that are more relevant and recognizable to them, etc.
I think it’s worth also acknowledging that artists and viewers benefit differently from the experiences—sometimes separated by great expanses of space, time, and aesthetic sensibilities—of creating and beholding self-expressive art. When artists create self-expressive art, they must become mindful—consciously and intensely aware—of aspects of their experience they wish to express, and of the challenge of expressing it creatively in their chosen medium. This inevitably leads to a great degree of self-awareness, intensification of emotion, and a desire to master the technical aspects of the medium, all of which may prove profoundly meaningful in ways not available to those who will later encounter the art.
The viewer, on the other hand, having no access to the artist’s experience and perhaps no mastery of the technical methods of a given medium, may still be profoundly inspired by the aesthetic effects of the art and by relating it to their own sensibilities, circumstances, states of mind, and sense of meaning in life.
Attempting to guess, or even learning, what an artist wished to express may inform and become part of a viewer’s experience, but it shouldn’t comprise the entire experience. To benefit most from the experience of beholding art, a viewer must relate to it personally, become mindful of—and strive to intensify—their own feelings, regardless of whether they are the same as the artist’s. A wise viewer, therefore, must approach a work of art with openness and without preconception, not with the goal of limiting themselves only to “reliving” the artist’s feelings, which may be of lesser importance or even entirely irrelevant to them.
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In a letter to a young protégé, Rainer Maria Rilke noted, “Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness and remains far behind yours. Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.” In these words, Rilke confessed that his poetry may not communicate the fullness of his own feelings and the experiences that inspired them; specifically, the history, attitudes, and circumstances that shaped him into the person he was.
Along the same lines, the painter Francis Bacon said, “In a sense, I could say that I have painted my own life. I’ve painted my own life’s story in my own work — but only in a sense. I think very few people have a natural feeling for painting, and so, of course, they naturally think that the painting is an expression of the artist’s mood. But it rarely is. Very often he may be in greatest despair and be painting his happiest paintings.” In this, Bacon conceded that his expressive artwork may go as far as to make viewers feel the opposite of what he felt when creating his work.
I’m confident that I’m not alone in experiencing a sense of subtle joy and aesthetic pleasure when seeing the vibrant paintings of Vincent van Gogh. Of course, we know that van Gogh suffered terribly during the (surprisingly few) years in which he had made his great masterpieces. We know this from his letters to his brother, Theo, and perhaps most poignantly from Theo’s testimony of his brother’s last words being, “la tristess durera toujours”—the sadness will last forever. Like Bacon, it may not be a stretch to say that van Gogh created his “happiest paintings” to express his desire or hope to not feel as he truly had: to defy and to fight off his demons. This desire was an authentic part of his emotional state, meaning the resulting paintings were in fact self-expressive, even if what they expressed may be perceived by others to mean he has experienced the positive feelings inspired by his art, rather than just the wish—the yearning—to experience them.
These examples make an important point about expressive art, which is this: even assuming the art is understood by viewers as intended by the artist, no work of art ever expresses (or can express) the entirety of an artist’s feelings. This is for two reasons, the most obvious of which is this: the emotional state of any human being—especially one who is highly sensitive and contemplative—is a complex and ever-changing tapestry of moods, thoughts, and sensations—some good, some less so, some that may be expressed well in words or music or visual art, some that may not. As Fyodor Dostoevsky put it, “There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one’s idea for thirty-five years; there’s something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever.”
Another reason expressive art never expresses the entirety of an artist’s feeling may be less obvious. Artists, even if they are committed to being self-expressive in their work, often deliberately omit, obfuscate, simplify, or embellish certain parts of their experience when creating their work. Such omissions may result from the artist’s preference to not share certain aspects of their mood, or it may be a practical choice to emphasize—to not distract from—the feelings the artist did wish to express. In any case, it is fair to say that self-expression is never without its counterpart: self-suppression.
Viewers may not know what aspects of experience artists chose to suppress, but for artists self-suppression is in fact a form of self-expression. By choosing deliberately to leave out some aspects of experience, artists must be acutely aware of all aspects so they may choose deliberately what to leave out. In doing so, they must also be mindful of—explain to themselves—their reasons to leave certain things out. This, in turn, requires a degree of soul-searching—acknowledging and associating meaning with the details of their experience so they may make informed, deliberate choices about what to express and what to suppress. This allows artist to examine consciously their thoughts and feelings—not just considerations of aesthetic appeal—to take control and to decide what to do with, and about their feelings.
In this soul-searching lies the therapeutic effects of creating self-expressive art—effects that may not arise from making other kinds of art, such as art intended primarily to be aesthetically pleasing to others, which is the formal definition for the term “fine-art.” This should be an important consideration to any artist, but especially to so many who self-apply the label “fine-art photographer.”
In my younger years, I have made the mistake of referring to myself as a “fine-art photographer” because it sounded prestigious, and because I saw so many others do so, intending to designate their photography as artistic, rather than documentary. But I was wrong to do so. Fine art is, by definition, art intended purely for aesthetic appeal—to be beautiful. My kind of art is more aptly described as “self-expressive art”—art intended to convey feelings, emotions, thoughts. While I still strive for my work to be beautiful, I don’t consider beauty the subject of it (which is the goal of fine-art).
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