Rank—Art and Artist (iii)—The Psychological Ideology of Art

Otto Rank
Art and Artist
trans. Charles Francis Atkinson
(1932/1989)

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[xiii]

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

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[xiv] On the one hand, the individual urge to create is by no means the only specific quality of the artist; equally, on the other hand, canons of style, evolved from the collective consciousness, can by no means be regarded as the true essence of artistic creation; the one individual factor represents merely the motive-power, while the other, collective, element provides the forms that are suited in the circumstances to its activity and utterance.

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[xxiii] in The Trauma of Birth I discerned the fact, which I later developed theoretically, that the creative impulse, which leads to the liberation and forming of the individual personality—and likewise determines its artistic creativeness—has something positively antisexual in its yearning for independence of organic conditions. Correspondingly, my conception of repression differed from Freud's; for to him it is the result of outward frustration, while I trace it to an inward necessity, which is no less inherent in the dualistic individual than the satisfying of the impulse itself.

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[xxiv] if the neurotic type, who fails to synthesize his dualistic conflict, be studied from the therapeutic angle, the impression received is that of individuals who (psychologically speaking) represent the artist-type without ever having produced a work of art. ... In short, it would seem that the creatively disposed and gifted type has to have something in addition

[xxv]

before it can become a really productive artist, while on the other hand the work of the productive individual must also be added to before it can rank as a genuine work of art.

Neither the cultural and scientific history of art nor the aesthetic psychology of the artist has so far provided a satisfactory answer to this central question of the whole problem of art: namely, what constitutes the correlation between artist-type and the art-product; that is to say, the artistic creativeness and the art-form? And although it may seem evident that this common factor in the artist and the art product must be a super-individual, collective element, so obvious a conclusion at once raises a series of questions, the mere meaning of which is enough to show that they but make the real problem more acute. The first among such questions is likely to be: what does this collective factor, both generally and particularly in the creative individual, mean? Following directly upon this comes the next question: what is the characteristic which distinguishes the specific, artistic collectivity—subjective or objective—from others, such as religious, social, or national? In other words, why does the individual, endowed with this mysterious collective force, become now a popular leader, now the founder of a religion, and now an artist?

Now-Annual Linkinrunn

Linkinrunn is a Finnish word dating from the eighteenth century, when ironic messages about quotidian local goings on were commonly left in the town square by phantom nocturnal pranksters dragging pieces of chain through the snow. Actually, that's not true at all; it's merely my phonetic rendering of a well-known musicoblogical phenomenon whereby the blogger assembles one or more hyperlinks to online articles of marginal interest which said blogger has read in the recent past and deems worthy of passing on to the next marginally interested reader, but about which they have not the time, nor in most cases the inclination (ability? courtesy?!), to contribute anything original or enlightening of their own to the ongoing dialogue surrounding the topic at hand. This, gentle reader, is to be that, except for the fact that I really did find these blurbs interesting and worth my time, and will say a little bit (or a lot) about each of them as they are divulged. And all of that at no cost or obligation to you. Read on...

Golden Omelets - Jonathan Freilich

Jonathan is a fellow composition student here at CalArts and has written a lengthy but fascinating account of the intersection of the musical, economic and political in post-Katrina New Orleans. His account of the destructive effects, real and potential, of "boosterism" and political favoritism on the musical culture is revealing; in fact, I would say that if you have any interest at all in playing or studying any variety of New Orleans music old or new, it's essential reading. As one such person who nonetheless has found himself at a distance (geographical and otherwise) from "the real shit," it explains a lot; for example, how someone as spectacularly derivative as Evan Christopher can go around saying things like this to the jazz media without any fear of being marginalized:

Espeland: You were working with French musicians?

Christopher: On the Live at the Meridien recording, the drummer’s French. The other two musicians live in France but they’re actually Australian.

The bass player, Sebastien Girardot, has played traditional jazz with real New Orleans-style revival bands since he was 19. [Guitarist] David Blenkhorn came up with Australian musicians in the Australian traditional jazz scene. He plays the shit out of blues. He approaches jazz in almost a more American way than a lot of American musicians do.

Espeland[appropriately!]:What does that mean?

Christopher: He likes to swing and play blues.

Espeland: Do you find there’s a difference between working with American musicians and those who aren’t American?

Christopher: I can’t make a generalization like that. But I will say that I enjoy the spirit of these guys. It seems more American to me than a lot of the cats I work with here.

I'm no flaming patriot, but them's fightin' words anyway. There is, of course, something profoundly contrary to musical Americanism in what Christopher says here, which all jibes quite nicely with the notion of boosterism exported to out-of-the-way places, like Minnesota, where most people won't know the difference.

The Latin Jazz Grammy Travesty - Brian Lynch

I'm late to the party as usual, but if you missed it too, here's an in-depth account of some internecine strife at NARAS (the Grammy people) surrounding the recent consolidation of categories, which included the elimination of Latin Jazz as a standalone. It appears that Lynch himself as well as many of the other Latin Jazz luminaries involved are in fact members of this organization themselves. I can't claim any real understanding of what that means and don't particularly care to research it, but I'm having a devil of a time summoning the least bit of sympathy. Is this not an organization, an industry, a culture built from the very beginning on screwing people over? What has really been accomplished when recognition from such a morally and artistically compromised institution has become so paramount to a musical culture?

One obvious answer, I think, is that it hasn't really, but rather that there is some quite understandable, if predictable, self-interested writhing going on here among the exceedingly few exponents of said musical culture for whom the Grammys matter in the least, either practically or symbolically. I am especially troubled nonetheless by the assertion that ethnic pride is at stake here. Ethnic pride needs to be bigger than the Grammys; it needs to be self-determined and self-evident; it needs to be morally purer than the wretched criminals who run the entertainment industry and the soulless automatons they deploy to town hall meetings to run interference for them. Not that I know anything about ethnic pride, of course, but I'm at least willing to entertain the notion, because what is it that us straight white men hear so often from members of oppressed groups who intend to impress upon us how far we actually are from being post-race but that just because The Man gives out white and black and red and yellow trophies doesn't mean that those people have equal footing in His society; in fact, this may well be a diversionary tactic designed to make this appear to be the case while the injustices continue elsewhere in plain sight.

It is, of course, also highly unfashionable in 2012 to advocate so vociferously both for oneself and for such a narrowly-defined musical genre, more or less regardless of the social context, and so if you feel I'm being unduly-harsh-verging-on-obstrperous above, then allow me to at least point out this more obvious fact and have a good-natured chuckle about it at the expense of some musicians whom I otherwise have a great deal of respect for. I mean, reeeeeally guys? You wouldn't bat an eye if I was out there with a sandwich board agitating for an "Anglo-Jewish Mutt Acoustic Jazz Chamber Music" category and acting as if the future of my music and my people depended on it? If it does, I guess I've got another thing coming.

Irony Plague - Todd Clouser

I'm impressed by Todd's recent writing and thoughts, and as a result, also regretting not crossing paths with him when I was still in Minneapolis. Definitely read the linked NYT article, though, for the full effect. It puts into words so many thoughts I've had over the years in a way that I nonetheless don't yet have the full historical or critical theory-al understanding to articulate intelligently, though you might have noticed that I've tried anyway in fits and starts in this very space. There is what can only be called a psychoanalysis of the ironist conducted both explicitly and implicitly in this article, which I realize now is the way to get to the heart of the issue: postmodern pastiche itself actually fits fairly neatly into a linear art-historical analysis, but ironism specifically cannot really be fully understood this way, I don't think. It's a state of mind, not just a technique, and one doubts if it is unique to the present day so much as the democratization of creativity (which for high-musicological purposes actually started at the end of the eighteenth century, not with the advent of the microchip) actually creates it as a byproduct, leading to an accumulation over the years which has reached a fever pitch in recent decades. If you're an aesthete, ironism is a neurosis, not an art-historical inevitability; good to read a couple of intelligent takedowns, then, as such things tend to keep us aesthetes from also becoming nihilists, if only temporarily.