Thoughts on human pain portrait in the arts

As I prepare Galina Ustvolskaya's sixth sonata for the upcoming season, I have been thinking a lot about pain and its representation in the arts. The Ustvolskaya sonata is a piece that at first appears to be chaos, but the more I listen to it and work on it, I realize that this is not the case.

There was an article comparing the work to Malevich's painting The Black Square. Humans have a tendency to categorize what is different or strange as abstract and incomprehensible, when there is always so much more behind. However, Ustvolskaya's work, in my opinion, is rather comparable to the work of Alfred Kubin and Schopenhauer's vision of life, cold and realistic, uncomfortable, grotesque, for some unpleasant, leaving the darkest part of his being exposed.

The work is about pain, easy to say. However, pain is one of the most complex emotions that humans experience.

In my ideas I have categorized pain into 2 categories, physical and emotional. We experience physical pain momentarily, for example a cut, extreme physical pain would lead to death. Emotional pain is manipulated by our own psyche, our ideas make it even more extreme.

Pain has a different meaning for everyone, but do we really experience pure pain?

By reading the biography of the composer I can partially understand the reasoning behind her work, which should rather not be analyzed. Her work is spiritual, healing, deep and honest.

When you see how everything you thought you knew falls apart and your life suddenly collapses, many emotions appear, her music is a clear example of this. Slowly we are all approaching the same thing. Life changes, people change and some leave. Today I look at the city where I grew up and a lot has changed. I look at my before photos and partly I don't recognize myself.

“Life is a constant process of dying.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer