In the 20th century, numerous modern art works show characteristics that can no longer be explained by beauty, and many scholars call it "The Sublime." The Uncanny is a concept that is closely related to this concept of the sublime. Since the 20th cen ...
In the 20th century, numerous modern art works show characteristics that can no longer be explained by beauty, and many scholars call it "The Sublime." The Uncanny is a concept that is closely related to this concept of the sublime. Since the 20th century, two scholars, Heidegger and Freud, who have exerted great influence worldwide in the areas of philosophy, art and psychoanalysis, have published articles on this at nearly the same time, and based on their theories, many theoretical discussions and practices have been made in the areas related to art. Both of them look at the uncanniness in its essential connection with anxiety and death.
For Heidegger, the object of anxiety is the existence of Dasein itself, and its ultimate form is death. For death is the consummation of human existence. The feeling we feel as soon as such existence itself is revealed is the uncanny feeling. For the existence of human beings is as such uncanny for us. In addition, man is the most uncanny of all beings. The reason is that unlike all other beings, humans throw themselves into an uncertain future, even death, through the decision on our own existence beyond all the existing order, customs and morality they are accustomed to. And the reason why Antigone is the most uncanny among all humans is because she left herself entirely to the existential possibility of herself, which may even mean death. On the other hand, anxiety for Freud comes from the Libido's suppression and the experience of birth, which any human being would experience. And the extreme displeasure that this traumatic experience provided is the basis for all subsequent feelings of anxiety. Uncanniness is a kind of anxiety that appears to us, when these unpleasant feelings which was previously repressed reappear. These two views form a kind of dialectical interrelationship in that the uncanniness which relates itself to the feeling of anxiety is judged positively by one person and negatively by the other.
Both Heidegger and Freud explains the uncanniness with the examples of works of art. Freud uses Hoffman's novels "Sand Man" and "The Devil's Elixir" as models for explication, while Heidegger chooses Sophocles' "Antigone" and "Ister" by Hölderlin as examples. It is highly suggestive that both use works of art in order to reveal the most essential and innermost area of human existence. Thus, the discussion of uncanniness deserts the realm of ontology or psychoanalysis and connects itself with aesthetics, and has opened up the theoretical and practical possibilities of the concept of sublime, which will occupy a very important position in modern art after the 20th century.
Heidegger overcomes Kant's concept of the sublime through the uncanniness of anxiety. For Kant, the Sublime is derived from the marvel at the greatness of human own reason. But for Heidegger, it comes from the wonder at the Being itself. To Heidegger, of course, the Being as such is something which at the same time should be faced with courage in spite of the danger of death and with humbleness on account of the awfulness of the Being itself. Exactly there arises the uncanny feeling. Freud's uncanniness, on the other hand, is triggered by the revelation of something which should be avoided and hidden, namely the repressed primitive way of animistic thinking or castration anxiety. And while, for Heidegger, the sublime feeling associated with the uncanniness are not yet completely separated from those of marvels or awe of the existence itself, for Freud, the former are clearly distinguished from the latter. For it is too obvious that the uncanniness that results from castration anxiety will not let us marvel at them.
In any case, thanks to their theories of uncanniness, many artists from the 20th century onwards can no longer produce works of art which arouse the sublime feelings as a sort of beauty linked with the feelings of marvel and awe, but those which evoke the emotions of the sublime that are thought to be in contact with the essential aspects of our existence, therefore let us remain in those feelings and brood over them. Of course, it cannot be said that Heidegger and Freud have always had a direct impact on modern artists since the 20th century. However, it is hard to deny that they noticed the atmosphere of the contemporary age and provided theoretical support for it.