I wonder how the idea of a broken heart is romanticised in poetry, in art, and in the movies we watch. We often come across quotes that make a case for how those ridden with melancholia and anxieties have been wrongfully romanticised, and that it shouldn’t be done.
Honestly, I have mixed feelings about it.
Why? because even though heartbreak and failures only look beautiful in art, they never really could permeate the thick conscience of our society and create any sensitivity around it. Art can incite movements, art is the language of protest, and now, of propaganda. All things said and done, art has still failed to create a space for those who create it, while they are living. A select few blessed by the eyes and hearts of the masses see their pains being romanticised to a degree where they achieve cult status, but what about your friend, cousin, or neighbour who does the same thing, who only finds expression through creation and not conversation? what about creating spaces for them?
In a recent poem I wrote, I referred to how I believe Van Gogh might never have been romanticised to this degree if he hadn’t cut his ear off, if he didn’t die by suicide, and I wonder if the same remains true today.
The fascination our culture has with tormented geniuses, while understandable, for their show of creating beauty out of their ugly circumstances gives people hope, but how many sacrifices have to be made for the masses to understand that all that while, they might have needed help.
My professor made a point today, saying rebellious nature comes out of deprivation, and to me, art too is a form of rebellion, rebellion against reality, a reality that has disappointed them. Our reality is largely constructed, and art, is an attempt at giving the masses new perspectives to it, new imaginations of it, and a call to act upon it.
The current times of consumerism poses the risk of art being commodified for its aesthetic value, a short-lived experience that makes you feel things for a moment in this mind-numbing Sisyphean reality.
My dissonance arises from the fact that even though the romanticisation of pain and trauma might make us forget the bitter reality of it, the absolute failure of it trying to express the reality behind the poetic words might have left romanticisation as the only place where those tormented, feel like home, have a sense of worth, and, if lucky, find the means to sustenance.
This paradoxical nature of the tormented geniuses’ intent behind the creation of art, and its interaction with divided public perception and opinion might never be resolved, it doesn’t have to be, but it calls for a nuanced understanding of how melancholic art really should be treated.
Art, as I have stated before, is an outcome of dissatisfaction with reality, and that is something we need to think about, be sensitized about, at the same time, it does not mean that it loses its romantic value because, it shows the truth in a form that touches you.
While art touches your heart, it must also sear through your mind, while it answers your question of “If I’m the only one feeling this way?” in the affirmative, it must also make you ask what you can do about it.
Trauma, pain, heartbreak and decimated dreams are all ugly, but the fact that they can be expressed beautifully through the words of those who have been through it, is a testament to the human capacity of reassigning new value and meanings to everything, and so it is okay if it all gets romanticised, but the process does not stop here.
It calls for Introspection and action, so what has been written about, becomes a closed chapter, and with each closed chapter, we progress.
That we try our best at stopping history from repeating itself, and if it does repeat, we as a civilization, become a civilization that provides hope for them to live, and not one that seeds the idea that one has to keep hurting to be validated, to be romanticised, to be remembered.
So when one makes art, ask them the story behind it, ask them their feelings about it, don’t leave it for the school teachers and academics to tell you the moral of the story and meanings between the lines.
Understand the different realities, and then together, create one which accepts pain, appreciates one’s attempts at navigating through it, helps them, and not just expects a commodity out of it in search of momentary relatability, and aesthetic value.
Those around you who create stuff, fall on the same spectrum. While society looks at them as failures for their struggles and shows some sympathy at best, if you could understand what all I’ve written about above, must see them as those who still are trying.
Trying to show you their world while they are alive,
I hope you would not disappoint them.
