Art as an alleviation to Absurdism

We tend to live in a world peppered with strife. Further, existential dread robs us of living a meaningful life.

Albert Camus argues that humans have a chronic urge to understand the world that they live in. We use reason to do so. However, from our limited perspective the world appears unreasonable. This dissonance, between our use of reason and the unreasonable world creates the Absurd.

Camus argues that we must tackle the incomprehensibility of life to live it fully. We may not be successful in applying reason to the world, but it is the project itself that gives us the potential to truly live.

“The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

For Camus, we should live with the Absurd, adopting three mindsets:

First, one must constantly revolt against one’s circumstances. To rebel, one achieves clarity to understand what one must do with one’s time alive. Second, one must reject the idea of eternal freedom. Instead of optimizing for an eventual perfect state, one should recognize that one is free in every moment. Third, one must live with a sense of passion. To live life as much as possible rather than as good as possible. Since the latter is restrictive of freedom and a relative conception of good.

From this, we can deduce that it is the Artist that personifies Camus’ Absurd hero.

The Impressionist movement embodied Camus’ Absurd mindsets. At some point in the 1860s, a group of young artists decided to paint, very simply, what they saw, thought, and felt. They weren’t interested in painting history, mythology, or the lives of great men, and they didn’t seek perfection in visual appearances. Impressionists rebelled against classical subject matter and embraced modernity, desiring to create works that reflected the world in which they lived. Instead, as their name suggests, the Impressionists tried to get down on canvas an “impression” of how a landscape, thing, or person appeared to them in that fleeting moment.

I am fascinated by how if one stands too close to an impressionist painting then brushstrokes just look like blobs. However, only when one steps away, and takes in the entire painting in unison does the art truly come alive. The aesthetic significance of the strokes is only significant in relation to the other elements.

Ultimately, metaphysical inquiry and artistic practice share a fundamental aim: both are ways of addressing the absurd by revealing to human beings their own freedom and responsibility.1

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