The Art of Grief:
The Creative Pathway Through Sorrow, Rage and Loss
Wednesday, November 18
2 pm -3:40 pm PST
What do we do with anger, sorrow, fear, betrayal and abandonment? Is there an alternative to despair or medication?
IN this interdisciplinary salon, we will explore the great artistic spirits across the centuries have transformed their broken hearts into works of beauty that offered healing for their creators -- and hope for our aching world. We will encounter the sculptor Auguste Rodin, the painters Frida Kahlo, Artemisia Gentileschi and William- Adolphe Bouguereau and composers Antonin Dvorak, Gabriel Faure, JS Bach and Ludwig Van Beethoven.
The Gamut of Grief
We will explore the human responses to loss through the work of Elizabeth Kubler Ross's and see how powerfully the stages of anger, denial, fear, bargaining and acceptance were anticipated by Rodin's haunting sculpture The Burghers of Calais , and composer Gabriel Faure's Elegie for cello and piano. We will discover how music saved Bach and Dvorak from utter heartbreak after the death of their children and how painting became a vehicle of transformational art therapy as Artemisia Gentileschi coped with a brutal attack and Frida Kahlo recovered from an agonizing accident.
"If you bring forth what is inside of you, what is inside of you will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is inside of you, what is inside of you will destroy you"
- The Gospel of Thomas, circa 50-70 AD
From Grief to Grace
Both Antonin Dvorak and William Adolphe Bouguereau had several children die in their infancy. We explore their works that simultaneously honored the profound sorrow of their grief and yet offered the deepest tenderness as tribute to their lost children.
Both Antonin Dvorak and William Adolphe Bouguereau had several children die in their infancy. We explore their works that simultaneously honored the profound sorrow of their grief and yet offered the deepest tenderness as tribute to their lost children.