Heroic virtue #2 - Empathy and Art

Empathy is "seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, 

 and feeling with the heart of another." 

 Alfred Adler

Pieta 2

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/pieta-2-lianne-schneider.html

 Yesterday I spoke of philosopher Sam Keen’s book, Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man, and mentioned that in it, the author lists 10 heroic virtues one must possess in order to complete the sacred quest to ignite the flame in one’s heart. And although Keen was writing to men about how to do that in today’s society, he was actually outlining for all of us the qualities we need most desperately to live “heroically” through difficult times. The first virtue he named was wonder – that opening to mystery that I spoke of in yesterday’s post. I hope that I left you curious about the rest of those virtues and how each might apply to art/artists.  

The second heroic virtue mentioned by Sam Keen is empathy – defined at Dictionary.com first as…the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.  Psychologists Arthur Ciaramicoli and Katherine Ketcham explain, “When we move out of ourselves and into the other person’s experience, seeing the world with that person, as if we were that person, we are practicing empathy.”

But it’s the second definition of empathy that applies particularly to art…“the imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself:  By means of empathy, a great painting becomes a mirror of the self.” In fact, the first use of the word empathy in 1904 was used in discussing a concept of art appreciation.  

Even before the actual use of the word, in 1897, Leo Tolstoy described the quality as “infectiousness” or “contagiousness” in his book “What is Art? "Art," he said, "is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them…” Furthermore, Tolstoy claimed that no matter how interesting a supposed artwork might be, it isn’t a work of art unless it creates a sense of union and shared emotion and the work itself arises from the artist’s own inner need to express his feeling.

In other words, the primary purpose of art is to evoke not just feeling but empathy, the heroic quality that Sam Keen equates with being “spiritually available” and open to others. Empathy makes it possible for one to give oneself to others and to live vibrantly without concern for possessions or self-image. One does not have empathy – rather, one IS empathetic and good art evokes that response by encouraging the viewer to feel the feelings the artist experienced in creating the work. Art is not art unless it is a two way street that engages the emotions of both the artist and the viewers/readers/listeners. That emotion can be awe, sadness, grief, joy, wonder, tenderness, a sense of poignant remembrance…any reaction by which the viewer “catches” the feeling the artist had when creating the piece. Some artists evoke a unique combination of emotions that draws the viewer into the image immediately – like this image (and many others in her portfolio) by Trudi Simmonds.

She tells a story with each piece she does and her reverence for and appreciation of horses in particular not only engages me but evokes such poignant memories or dreamlike worlds that I honestly can’t explain it…I can only step into the world she created and feel it. She accomplishes what Tolstoy required of art – an empathetic response – because her own emotional involvement is evident in each work. 

Clearly, empathy is essential to a true work of art…are you an empathetic artist? Are you evoking an empathetic response to your work? If you aren’t creating because you simply HAVE to and because you have something you feel compelled to share, then probably not. But if you are creating from your own empathetic virtues, then chances are your viewers can feel that too.