In this volume, a psychiatrist and two professional musicians hope to bring relief to the grieving by their exploration of the emotional effects of ancient and modern painting, poetry, architecture, and music.
Robert Arnold Johnson, MD, is the moderator of this discussion with two old friends. Each brings a unique angle to the book: Johnson’s background is in clinical work as a psychotherapist (he also contributes a short piece of fiction); Pickett’s is education in music theory and her career as a violinist; and Brown’s is his talents as a songwriter/performer and psychotherapist.
Johnson starts by describing the benefit of coming to terms with “intrinsic, innate, primary, natural, or essential grief — the sad feeling that’s primary within the experience of loss itself.” Each author examines how art—be it a Raphael Madonna, the Taj Mahal, a Shakespeare sonnet, or Judy Collins’ Secret Gardens—evokes this feeling.
The book closes with more on the clinical experience of grief therapy and the feeling of the sublime, as described by Friedrich von Schiller: “’a composition of melancholy… and of joyousness which can mount to rapture.’”
This collaboration delivers an intellectually challenging, profoundly moving examination of the enigmatic connection between loss and awe. Much of Johnson’s writing reads as dense, academic text (although his short story of a young man discovering his old friend’s name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is particularly poignant). The sections on music read as high-level lectures, but the musicians’ passion for their favorite examples of sublime compositions is infectious. The Notes after each chapter expand the concepts with literary citations and personal experience.
Is this a clinical textbook on the phenomenon of grief or an anthology of art history and music theory lectures? The blend of so many ideas and styles makes a target audience hard to pinpoint. Still, those open to wide-ranging philosophical and psychological discussions will find this a deep dive into the pain of loss and the heights of creativity.
Also available as an ebook.