The one constant in humanity is the existence of pain and suffering. Whether it is the personal pain of a lost loved one, the collective pain of war and conflict, or the existential pain of consciousness, society remains subject to this certainty.
However, that is not to say that we are imprisoned by this suffering. So often the most profound beauty emerges from the depths of this pain, and so often it is pain itself that amplifies this beauty to eternal heights. From the elegance of Hemingway’s words, to the exquisiteness of Van Gogh’s brush, to the majesty of Beethoven’s sound, the peak of human artistic endeavour often exists in an inseparable marriage with the greatest suffering.
Pain and beauty in literature
As far as the literary greats are concerned, there are countless examples of magnificence stemming from a place of existential suffering.
Ernest Hemingway is a potent example. This lonely man whose life was marked by depression and alcoholism, is the same man who wrote that “man is not made for defeat … A man can be destroyed but not defeated”. Perhaps this is Hemingway himself, destroyed by drinking and depression, and yet undefeated, as his words still echo on today.
In a similar vein, Sylvia Plath suffered the death of her father, a life of depression, and an eventual end by suicide, and yet wrote with such a profound beauty that it could have only come from this pain. “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again.”
There are countless such relationships between suffering and literary beauty across the history of human writing. Fyodor Dostoevsky endured a life of intense hardships around poverty, gambling, addiction, imprisonment and exile, and yet produced some of the most influential novels of all time. Even Shakespeare, a man widely regarded as the most influential writer in history, is believed to have written Hamlet as a tribute to either his dead son or father. Whilst it may be true that not all authors endure a life of suffering, it seems that for those who do, their work is all the more beautiful because of it.
Pain and torment raw and beautiful in visual art
One of the most crushing champions of this pain-beauty paradigm is Vincent Van Gogh, a man whose eye for beauty is celebrated centuries after his death, and yet a man who died as a failed artist in the grips of depression, poverty, and loneliness.
Van Gogh’s ability to not only paint beautifully, but capture the very essence of beauty, was in part due to his immense talent, but also the striking emotional intensity of his work. The fact that each brush stroke carries such profound pain and meaning is why he is rightfully considered one of the greatest artists of all time.
Francisco Goya sits as another powerful example, even more so, as his suffering came to him later in life, allowing for the direct comparison of his work before and after the intrusion of pain. At 46 years of age, a mysterious illness turned him deaf, simultaneously turning his life into one of isolation and physical torment. Previously an artist of joyous, courtly works, he became one of dark introspection. However, that is not to say that his paintings lost beauty; rather, they gained a profound, raw emotion. His artistry became more expressive and free, his subjects more dark, and his message infinitely more powerful.
Of all the artistic forms, art may be considered to be the most unmediated physical expression of an artist’s inner being. The pain and torment underlying the beauty in the works of artists such as Edvard Munch, Frida Kahlo and Mark Rothko are overwhelmingly evident. These are individuals who used their pain and distress to create exquisite beauty.
Personal and societal struggles giving rise to beautiful music
Music, one of the purest forms of human expression, is no different, with suffering proving instrumental in the creation of some of humanity’s greatest works. The work of Ludvig van Beethoven embodies this; a man who was born with undeniable musical talent, but whose later and greater works, such as his ninth symphony, were written after he turned deaf. Forced into isolation, Beethoven’s work, arguably, became all the more beautiful.
Amy Winehouse, an artist of an entirely different time and society, harnessed entirely different struggles to a similar end. Struck down by addiction, mental illness, and corrosive relationships, she created some of the most expressive and beautiful contemporary music of this generation.
Even if musicians aren’t suffering themselves, it is often their ability to embody the suffering of others that elevates their music to heights of profound beauty. The blues movement of late 19th century America was an expression of the suffering and pain of the black community at the time. Reggae emerged in the 1960s from a Jamaica grappling with poverty and a legacy of colonial exploitation. Punk Rock was born from the political and economic hardships of a stagnating 1970s Britain and America.
There are countless more examples. It seems that pain does not just inspire beauty on an individual level, but societal suffering can also form the foundations from which beauty emerges.
Imagined suffering as creative inspiration
Many artists find themselves embodying imagined suffering as a tool of creation. Whilst not born from real existential roots, imagined suffering can be just as potent in enhancing the beauty of art.
Leo Tolstoy is just one example of this phenomenon. Whilst his life was not devoid of distress, some of his most famous works rely on his ability to inhabit the suffering of others. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy is able to imagine the emotional and spiritual suffering of an adulterous woman on her path to suicide; a suffering entirely detached from his reality as a male of noble and military rank, and yet a suffering realised so vividly in the novel.
In the age of AI, suffering may be humanity’s creative advantage
In an age of artificial intelligence and automated art, it is actually humanity’s propensity to suffer that could maintain our status as the finest creators of artistic beauty. Perhaps it isn’t AI’s inability to perceive beauty that will prevent it from reaching human heights, but its inability to perceive pain. Experience is essential in creation, and the experience of suffering seems to be an important element to the creation of beauty. At a time of such uncertainty, a time where AI threatens so much, it is ironically the darkest aspects of humanity’s existence – pain, suffering, and hardship – that emerge as humanity’s unlikely creative advantage.
So, just like the poppies growing from the war-torn earth of Flanders, beauty so often finds itself emerging from the black crust of suffering. It’s a paradox that’s well summed up by Shakespeare: “Sweet are the uses of adversity, / Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, / Wears yet a precious jewel in his head …”.
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