ART AND NOSTALGIA

1. Introduction Every generation looks back at the past like a golden age, as a time of greater happiness and prosperity. As Milan Kundera once said, in his novel Ignorance, nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return. The term alone provides us with definition of itself, since it is a combination of Greek and Homeric words nostos and algos, which mean longing and pain. Nostalgia is not the same as simply remembering the past, it is a much more escapist notion. It is something that every individual experiences. Since art is a form of expressing life and its aspects, we can notice that nostalgia is best shown through many forms of it for centuries. Even at earlier periods, such as Renaissance, intellectuals began to look back on Ancient Greece and Rome as the golden age of world history, a great period of culture, joy, and learning. Those were the good old days! they said. With this new historical vision, they began to work out a plan to revive their society, using the golden age of antiquity as their template and inspiration.1 There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time when miserable.- Dante Alighieri Longing is what makes art possible. By "longing" we imply on emotional response to deprivation, loss, and mourning. Nostalgia has, in this way, supplied the necessary inspirational "creative sorrow" for artists. This position draws on the original seventeenth-century meaning of the word; it sees nostalgia in our century as the positive response to the homelessness and exile of both private nervous disorder and persecution of actual enslavement and barbaric cruelty.2 As already stated, nostalgia is best expressed through art. But why is that? We believe it is because art itself is focused mainly on expressing notions, emotions and moods.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/01/24/in-defense-of-nostaglia/ http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/criticism/hutchinp.html

2. Literature and nostalgia Literature has always been an important part of human culture. This kind of art of written form represents the best way to express ones moods and feelings, such as nostalgia, that has been a theme present in various literary genres for centuries. There have been and will always be many writers that will bring up this 'nostalgic' revival of memories in their writings. Although today we are familiar with great number of such literary creators, we shall mention only some. Best example is James Joyce and his Dubliners. James Joyce, a 20th century Irish novelist and poet, famous for his creative works and influence in the modernist avant-garde. His bibliography includes many poems, plays, novels and short stories. His famous works include Ulysses, Dubliners, Exiles, Chamber Music, etc. In Dubliners, his short stories collection, we can notice the nostalgia. In his story Eveline we can see the desire for escape and release from present situation of the protagonist, and also this mentioned longing for past happier times. The protagonist feels happy to leave her hard life, yet at the next moment she worries about fulfilling promises to her dead mother. She grasps the letters shes written to her father and brother, revealing her inability to let go of those family relationships, despite her fathers cruelty and her brothers absence. She clings to the older and more pleasant memories and imagines what other people want her to do or will do for her.3 Musa azim ati was a famous 20th century Bosnian poet who created a great number of poems. He was an artist to whom poetry meant life and existence. Presence of nostalgia is shown in many of his works, such as Nostalgija or Zambak. Many of his poems reflect this idea of inscrutability for past and beauty.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dubliners/section4.rhtml

Tin Ujevi, 20th century Croatian poet also created literature reflecting the notion of nostalgia and sorrow. His poems, such as Pobratimstvo Lica u Svemiru, Tajanstva and Notturno show loneliness, the desire for companionship and times when men stood beside, not against men.

3. Music, painting, photography and nostalgia Beside literature, we also have nostalgia expressed through other forms of art, which we will briefly mention, such as music, photography, painting and other. As an example, in music we can mention the work of Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi, where we can clearly see notion of time passing and nostalgia; In painting best examples are Picasso, famous for his Guernica, V. van Goghs Irises, Munchs The Scream and Modigliani who, even though inexperienced in painting landscapes managed to create harmony of the blues - the sky and the distant prospect of sea - vibrate like a nostalgic echo of his Leghorn childhood on the shores of the Mediterranean4 ; In photography, famous for his images from 1960s Garry Winogrand represents central

photographer of his generation, depicting beautiful women, businessmen, animals, and American spectacles of all kindsteem with ebullience, humor, and haphazardness.5 4. Conclusion People will always look back at past times as a period of prosperity and better life. They will always look for a way to get back, at least for a moment, to those times. Through various forms of art, artists managed, for centuries, to pour their notions and feelings, such as nostalgia, into their works and create connection between beauty and sorrow, that way creating feelings of sadness and longing, and for some even a mild joy of remembering the old days.

http://www.moodbook.com/history/modernism/modigliani-erotica-nudes.html http://www.artnews.com/2013/03/27/garry-winogrand-retrospective/

His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly anymore because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.- Ernest Hemingway

WEB SOURCES: "In Defense of Nostalgia." The Art of Manliness RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. "Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern, by Linda Hutcheon." Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern, by Linda Hutcheon. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. "Garry Winogrand: Rolls of a Lifetime." ARTnews. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. "Dubliners." SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2013. Allardice, Lisa, and Tim Ma. "Sebastian Barry Reads 'Eveline' by James Joyce." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 01 Feb. 2013. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. "Eveline." By James Joyce. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2013. "MostlyFiction Book Reviews." Ignorance by Milan Kundera. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. "The Manitoban." The Manitoban. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2013. "Vincent Van Gogh Paintings from Saint-Remy." HowStuffWorks. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. "Tin Ujevi | Studio Narana." Studio Narana. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. "Amedeo Modigliani." . Erotica Art Nudes. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. "Escaping Artist." Escaping Artist. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. "Fran Lebowitz on Artists and Nostalgia." YouTube. YouTube, 04 Aug. 2011. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. "Picasso's "Secret" Guernica *." Picasso's Secret Guernica. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.

""The Scream"

- Edvard Munch - Painting Location - Oslo, Norway -

PopSpotsNYC.com." "The Scream" - Edvard Munch - Painting Location - Oslo, Norway - PopSpotsNYC.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. "Pobratimstvo Lica U Svemiru - Tin Ujevi -." Pobratimstvo Lica U Svemiru - Tin Ujevi -. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. "Tchaikovsky's Symphony 4Emotional Music, Dramatic Anguish." Tchaikovsky's Symphony 4. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.