Negative capability

Fernando Kaskais

Aug 1

Illustration by Ivyy Chen

When it comes to our complicated, undecipherable feelings, art prompts a self-understanding far beyond the wellness industry

Aparna Chivukula writes, draws, and makes books. She teaches writing and comics at Mount Carmel College in Bangalore. Her poems have been published in Poetry at Sangam. Earlier this year, she won the Toto Award for poetry.

He is standing in front of an old, intricately decorated urn in a museum, looking at the images etched into its surface, when he begins to wonder:

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

These lines come from the opening of 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' written by John Keats in 1819. Across the poem's five wandering and acutely detailed stanzas, Keats chooses not to seek an understanding of the urn in front of him through research or historical data; instead, he observes and imagines through questions and narratives. A person etched into the surface is playing a pipe under a tree – music that can't be heard, Keats muses, and a tree whose leaves will never shed. Nearby, two lovers are frozen while leaning in for a kiss. To the poet, it seems their love is never-ending: though they will never kiss, they'll never grow old or apart. Absorbed by the figures depicted on the urn, Keats creates an imaginative space, a space for thinking-by-looking.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

'Ode on a Grecian Urn' gives us a sense of the poet's mode: he asks question after question about the urn, not to uncover facts or 'answers', but rather to sustain his experience of wonder and curiosity. There is something else, too. Keats is not only speculating, inventing and describing, he's also seeking out the effects of his imaginative engagement with the urn itself. What exactly are these effects? And is there something about this particular mode of engaging with images and objects – with art – that could prove valuable in other contexts?

One evening, I tell my friend that I feel as though there is a wall in my mind, blocking me from my own thoughts. And all I'm left with, I say, are feelings I can't explain. There is no story or reason or event that helps them make sense. I'm left sad, confused. My friend, who is a painter, wonders: well, how will you get around the wall? Maybe you could turn yourself into air, or water. For a moment, we take this image of the wall seriously, imagining its architecture and the logic of its construction: what are its dimensions? What material is it made from? Is it porous? Could water seep through? What was, moments ago, just an analogy for my feelings of powerlessness and uncertainty starts to take shape as an open-ended image – like an abstract painting or a figure etched into an old urn.

Though the image doesn't solve my problems, wandering the space inside it with curiosity starts to change the way I'm thinking. I'm no longer seeking explanations for inscrutable emotions, wondering: 'Why am I feeling this way?' I'm now exploring somewhere new, asking: 'What is this space and how does it work?'

Rather than trying to force an explanation on to my feelings, I explored the ambiguous image of the wall with no predefined outcome. The objectives were open-ended and unarticulated. Yet the effect was transformative. I was reminded of Keats's urn, and the potential in his mode of questioning and imagining. Perhaps, I wondered, there is a pathway among these urns and walls that leads toward mental wellness? But if there was, it was unlike any other pathways I was familiar with.

We need more open-ended forms of understanding and reflection – self-help beyond the self

The tools that dominate the mental wellness landscape today – from mindfulness apps to certain forms of cognitive behavioural therapy – offer very different approaches. The shared strategy behind these forms of self-help is often defined by a kind of self-surveillance, in which wellbeing emerges from looking inwards. Through practices, prompts and language that encourage this inward focus, these tools aim to create calm, understanding or epiphanies. These are good things. The concern, however, is that being so inwardly attentive – to your behaviour, feelings, bodily changes and social interactions – may lead to hypervigilance or the hyper-articulation of the self...

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https://aeon.co/essays/it-is-art-not-apps-that-helps-us-with-our-complex-feelings