May 28, · The loneliness of the soul. In it, Laing examines loneliness through art, with essays on Andy Warhol's Time Capsules and Edward Hopper's Nighthawks among As a result, those who spend too much of their time in social networking may incur psychological symptoms such as loneliness, social isolation, and negative outlook from their immediate family members or friends. This could result into health concerns which are even more serious, like heart diseases, especially when one feels that his or her Oct 20, · The cost of isolating frail elders in nursing homes — many of which have been on a literal lockdown for months — is taking an even steeper toll than aging advocates feared
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From Wordsworth wandering lonely as a cloud to a thousand pop songs about love-lost angst, culture is steeped in references to loneliness. Some authors have loneliness essays its praises — Virginia Woolf said loneliness allowed her to feel "the singing of the real world".
Emily Brontë's novel, Wuthering Heights, pulsates with agonising loneliness, from its windswept Yorkshire Moors setting to its moody, solitary antihero Heathcliff. The writer is said to have avoided human society, and rarely left Haworth. While comedian Lily Tomlin once quipped : "Just remember.
We're all in this alone". Artists have traditionally spent time apart from others, all the better to connect with their muse, loneliness essays. Shakespeare wrote one of his masterpieces, King Lear, in quarantine in the early s, as the Black Plague ravaged London.
Frida Kahlo said she painted self-portraits, for which she is most noted, because she was " so often alone ". Van Gogh left Paris in the hope that the quieter ambience loneliness essays Arles in the south of France would give him mental loneliness essays. The lonely, tortured artist archetype can be traced back to Loneliness essays architect and artist Giorgio Vasari; his influential book ofThe Lives of the Artists, depicts the artist as someone who lives on the periphery of society, literally and metaphorically, loneliness essays.
Of course, not everyone wants to be isolated, and lockdowns and social distancing rules have inevitably led to greater feelings of loneliness, loneliness essays, particularly among young adults. But if loneliness is distressing, then solitude is a more agreeable animal, loneliness essays, and individuals have chosen to be alone since ancient times, loneliness essays. The first known Christian hermit was Paul of Thebes believed to have lived alone in the desert of Egypt loneliness essays many decades, loneliness essays.
Anthony Storr, in his book Solitude: A Return to Selfloneliness essays, proposed that spending time happily alone is necessary for mental health and creativity, loneliness essays, and that the most profound human experiences have little to do with our relationships with others. And Picassono less, loneliness essays, is much quoted on the subject, with the phrase: "Without great solitude no serious work can be accomplished", loneliness essays. Loneliness and grief carve a deep, dark seam through the current show by the British artist Tracey Emin.
Her joint exhibition with works by Edvard Munch, at London's Royal Academy, bears the title The Loneliness of the Soulreflecting qualities she has identified with in loneliness essays Norwegian Expressionist's work since she "fell in love with him" at the age of 18, she tells BBC Culture. Emin may still be best known worldwide for her "confessional" and controversial art installations of the s including My Bed, with its cigarette butts, vodka bottles and stained mattress; and Everyone I Have Ever Slept Withappliquéd with names.
Not to mention her reputation for hedonism, and stark emotional honesty about her public and private life. As she says: "I tell it like it is". But her art and life — always twin flames — have changed. She's embracing her exceptional talent for painting while recovering from serious illness. Crouching Nude, loneliness essays,by Edvard Munch — the Norwegian Expressionist valued solitude Credit: Munchmuseet.
In July last year Emin was diagnosed with squamous-cell bladder cancer, the same disease her mother, loneliness essays, Pam, died of in Emin underwent radical surgery to remove her bladder, uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries, lymph nodes, urethra and part of her colon and vagina. In April this year she announced on BBC Two's Newsnight that her cancer is "gone". She also described how she faced the rest of her life with a "major disability" a urostomy bag replaces her bladder.
In May her "cancer self-portraits" were published in The Guardian, brave selfies taken while she was in hospital and post-surgery. Prior to her cancer diagnosis, Emin, 57, had been working hard on the Royal Academy loneliness essays. From thousands of works in the Munch archive in Oslo, Norway, she selected 18 oils and watercolours by the artist.
These now sit with more than 25 of her own works, loneliness essays, including paintings, sculptures and neons — many made in the same time period, but years apart. It's a landmark show, the first time the two artists have been displayed together. Its themes of grief and loneliness loneliness essays palpable, the works full of drama and quite heart-rending, especially in the context of Emin's illness.
In the works I am The Last of my Kind and You Came there is a visceral vulnerability and anguish in the solitary nude figures; trauma is etched into the powerful This is life without you — You made me Feel Like This ; while the earlier neon piece More Solitude points to the necessity of aloneness.
Her year fascination with Munch parallels their lives and psyches. He painted his emotional state with painful rawness, a shockingly new technique that gave birth to Expressionism. His "soul paintings" — tortured souls and ghostly lovers — reflected his fascination with then-popular spiritualism and the supernatural. That interest offers further common ground — Emin has said her relatives held seances at home in Margate. Munch had a drinking problem and was forced to give up alcohol to save his sanity — Emin has also given up drinkingto save her health.
She sees him as a kindred soul, loneliness essays, telling me over the phone from her London home: "I related to how he viewed the world so alone, loneliness essays. He was very emotional but very existential too, loneliness essays, always in a position of being on the outside looking in. Emin has always been candid about her love life: she tells me she's not been in a relationship for 11 years, and has lived alone for 20 years, then corrects herself: "I lived with my cat, Docket, but he died last year.
Now he's gone, she feels there's room, more space to invite love into her life, loneliness essays. There is a sense of aloneness loneliness essays Munch's work including Seated Female Nude, Credit: Munchmuseet, loneliness essays.
Emin has been reading Loneliness essays portrayals of death he lost his mother when he was five, his sister at 14 in the context of the current pandemic. Think about it, before [the current pandemic] some people had not experienced death unless it was their parents, say. Now few can say that after the past year… People have become much more aware of the finality and the fragility of life too. That might include herself — and have helped to shape her own experience of solitude over the last year.
Loneliness essays she was diagnosed with cancer, she consciously distanced herself from friends to preserve her energy to get through the surgery and to heal she says. During her recovery she's been working less and has allowed friends back in — she has been glad of their support. If something made me unhappy before, it would engulf me.
Now I just deal with it… The cancer's really helped me with that. The artist is relishing a new lust for life. Her 9m-high bronze sculpture, The Mother — "I'm giving Munch the mother he never had" — will be installed outside the Munch Museum in Oslo; her studio complex in Margate should soon be completed; and loneliness essays major show in Venice, which was postponed owing to her illness, will now go ahead in Also, she says: "I'm open to love, which is very different to how I felt… I also feel I deserve it, loneliness essays, maybe before I didn't.
Her psyche has changed; she feels that her ordeal has erased trauma. Emin appreciates her "amazing life…. I'm embracing everything. Nearly loneliness essays has a lot to do with it, I know, loneliness essays. She's sure of one thing: "I no longer feel alone… I think the chance of me dying without someone holding my hand is zero.
According to many artists and writers, there is a "cure" for loneliness. Maya Angelou said music was hers: "I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness". Others find it in natureloneliness essays, hiking, wild swimming: the " tonic of wilderness " as Thoreau put it.
Author Martin Shaw knows about the virtues of isolation outdoors. As a "rites-of-passage wilderness guide", he takes groups into deepest Dartmoor, in the English countryside, and other remote places, where they separate and learn to "reconnect with nature and their own character". Retreats like these loneliness essays back to Ancient Celtic times, says Shaw, loneliness essays, the author of Smoke Hole: Looking to the Wild in the Time of the Spyglasswhich reframes myths for our times.
He has also collaborated with the actor Mark Rylance and the artist Ai WeiWei. Shaw tells BBC Culture that people on his retreats, from troubled teens to traumatised war veterans, can report being bored or homesick but "I've never had anyone come back and say they were lonely… There's so much stimulation in the wild, maybe there's no space for loneliness essays. The work loneliness essays painter Edward Hopper is explored in Olivia Laing's loneliness essays The Lonely City Credit: Alamy.
The key is in forging meaningful relationships, according to Dr Andrea Wigfield of the Centre for Loneliness Studies at University of Sheffield. The centre's research showed that when people can't be together, loneliness essays, arts-based activities, such as children and grandparents working together online on arts projects, can help them to connect.
However these aren't enough on their own to combat loneliness if meaningful relationships are absent. In the UK, Loneliness Awareness Week LAW runs from 14 to 18 June, loneliness essays. Run by the Marmalade Trust, the theme this year is acceptance, and their "We get lonely" campaign aims to make loneliness accepted as a natural part of being human.
The writer Olivia Laing is familiar with finding positives in adversity. Moving to New Loneliness essays City in her 30s after a break-up, loneliness essays, she felt a terrible loneliness every day.
The book that evolved from that, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alonewas a hit. The New York Times said it was "daring…about the universal struggle to be known ". In it, Laing examines loneliness through art, with essays on Andy Warhol's Time Capsules and Edward Hopper's Nighthawks among others. Loneliness essays tells me that focusing on Hopper's paintings with their "feeling of separation, of being walled off or penned in, combined with near-unbearable exposure" helped her, and "eased the burden of my own feelings.
Someone else had grappled with loneliness, and found beauty, even value in it". If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, loneliness essays, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc. com features newslettercalled The Essential List. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.
Art The art of living. How to make the most of loneliness. Share using Email. By Beverley D'Silva 1st June Artists and writers have long been drawn to solitude — but why is that, and what can we learn from them? Beverley D'Silva speaks to Tracey Emin and others to find out more.
More like this: - Why change is the key to a good life - Three ideas for loneliness essays to live a fuller life - Have we got minimalism all wrong? The loneliness of the soul Loneliness and grief carve a deep, dark seam through the current show by the British artist Tracey Emin.
Munch was very emotional but very existential too, loneliness essays, always in a position of being on the outside looking in — Loneliness essays Emin. There's so much stimulation in the wild, maybe there's no space for loneliness — Martin Shaw. Around the BBC.
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Mar 17, · This year’s admissions essays became a platform for high school seniors to reflect on the pandemic, race and loss. a chance to pour out intimate feelings about loneliness and injustice Apr 07, · Social factors – loneliness and isolation, lack of meaningful relationships with family or peers. Behavioral factors – alcohol or drug abuse. Psychological factors – early childhood trauma, recent stressful experiences like a death in the family. TOP depression essay topics. Effects of mood disorders on physical health Oct 20, · The cost of isolating frail elders in nursing homes — many of which have been on a literal lockdown for months — is taking an even steeper toll than aging advocates feared
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