“Historically Apathetic” is also the title of my senior thesis paper submitted to the UNC Asheville Undergraduate Research Symposium. Feel free to click here to read the full thesis, or check out the abstract below:
The Symbolism Movement of Art and Literature began in the 19th century and aimed to express personal emotions or ideas rather than reproducing images of the natural world. Artists often created fictional fantasy worlds to facilitate the language necessary to communicate those ideas. Different among these artists was Edvard Munch, who is often referred to as a Symbolic Naturalist painter, drawing on his fears and anxieties of modern existence relating more so to the average passerby.[i] Outside of the fine arts world are clinical therapy practices that seek to address these anxieties in order to ease them. Two such clinical therapies break away from traditional conversational therapy: art therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). While art therapy involves the patient’s hands-on participation in expressing their traumas and worries via visual conversation, EMDR simulates the processing powers of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, pulling the patient into a more dreamlike state of mind in order to better process traumas and fears.[ii], [iii] By incorporating the ideas of the Symbolism Movement and the partnership of addressing negative experiences with the positive experience of creating—can this body of work, in the process of creating authentic autobiographical works, bring the artist resolve and validate viewers’ shared experiences of anxiety and trauma?
[i] Nicole Myers, “Symbolism,” in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2000–, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/symb/hd_symb.htm, 2007).
[ii] Noah Hass-Cohen and Richard Carr, editors, Art Therapy and Clinical Neuroscience, (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2008, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unca/detail.action?docID=366687#), 24.
[iii] "What is EMDR?" EMDR Institute – Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy. 2018. Accessed March 12, 2018. http://www.emdr.com/what-is-emdr/.