The Concept of Freedom in Drawing and Creativity

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Shakiba Sattar Broujeni

Sabanci University, Visual Art and Communication Design 

25 January 2021 

 The Concept of Freedom in Drawing and Creativity 

Abstract 

One of human basic needs is freedom that play central role in art and creativity as a social process. The purpose of this paper is to investigate freedom concept in different ideas and emphasize the role of freedom in art and creativity and considering the women freedom in society. Freedom maximizes social welfare by ensuring justice and equality. Creativity is commonly thought to depend on freedom and a lack of constraints. In this chapter, I will address the relation between freedom, art, and creativity as well as the state of women in Iran society. This is focusing on concept of freedom according to Isaiah Berlin’s, with other thinkers such as Marx, Plato and Hannah Arendt contributing to the analysis. Emphasizing on the concept of freedom through the evolution of humankind is another aspect that I try to explain in this article. This essay argues that the creative motivations embedded in the history of art are intimately linked to political and social motivations which effect the discrimination among men and women and leads to inequality. 

Keyword: Freedom, Creativity, Limitation, Women right, Inequality 

Introduction

This essay looks at freedom and the arts through the lens of positive and negative liberty and their relationship to social and political discourse as understood through the prism of history, as well as other philosophical theories. Knowing how the artistic and political relate to the historical discussion of liberty. The multifaceted debates about freedom address a number of broad themes, among which include how freedom relates to other values such as equality, freedom and determinism, freedom and moral responsibility, and the nature of freedom itself, as expressed in the difference between positive and negative liberty. There is good reason to reflect upon freedom from an art historical perspective, something that is not prevalent in the ongoing philosophies of freedom in the liberal tradition. I believe that the association of artistic and liberal qualities as has emerged throughout human history is close enough to justify thinking through the two concepts together. The nature of art changed in the modern era, starting with the Enlightenment, as the direction of artistic force moved from the powerful to the general public. Art’s ability to influence society did not change, but the vectors with which that force was applied underwent a profound shift. In particular, it is the political power that governments have wielded over those they have ruled—whether democratic, monarchical, ecclesiastical, or imperial—that becomes salient, and how the arts have contributed to that power as a force of both legitimation and contestation. 

Evolution and Freedom 

One of human basic needs is freedom that play central role in social process. Human development means to expand human choices, which it required to freedom concept. Human development is the most important factor of welfare improvement where the freedom is an essential instrument to achieve it. Homo Sapiens dominated the world because they were the only animal that could have flexible in many collaborations which leads to discrimination — whether racial, sexual, or political. All systems of broad human cooperation — including religions, political structures, business networks, and legal — owe their emergence to Sapiens' distinct cognitive capacity. The trend of Sapiens has been increasingly towards political and economic dependence. For centuries, the majority of human beings lived in empires, and capitalist globalization produced a global empire, and money, and world religions were the main drivers of this trend. 1Our evolutionary background has caused us to value freedom. However, this same background has meant that we have tendencies that also cause us to limit freedom. Human freedom is inseparable from self-awareness of his limitations. As early humans created tools to meet their needs, they sought to achieve freedom with awareness of their limitations. 

1.Limitations of everything related to life (ontological experience) We are dependent on the environment and need food and water to survive. We must work and try to make our lives better. As a subject, our dependence on the object is undeniable. The subject sees his freedom in this field in the power of choice and possession of the object and must adapt himself to the cruel behaviors of nature. From an ontological point of view, we can speak of two types of human experience: an experience that points to the inner world and a second experience that points to the outside world, such as promoting thought, choosing between available possibilities, and behaving freely in relation to the world. The outside is important. On the one hand, the individual is limited to compulsion in the world of existence, and for him, existence is a system of algebra that surrounds him from the outside.2

2.Human’s dependence on another human being and his trust in society limits him in another way (social experience), so we do not have complete individuality. We have limitations, both individually and in terms of population. Hence, we need rules and regulations for living together. As a result, in society, we face war, justice, injustice, power and the struggle to win. 

Humans live in four natural, domestic, social and international environments. Friendly and benevolent methods of influence, such as raising awareness, forgiving, liberating, or saving people and helping to free themselves from captivity and humiliation to the status of freedom or dignity are related to the social and global environment. In "evolutionary revolutions" in which the conditions of the social environment are fundamentally changed and disruptive and corrupting factors such as authoritarian monarchy, tyranny and plunderers are ousted from the external environment or are liberated from political power, People could achieve Political Freedom, Independence or Liberation. Socialization provides a direct narrative of the acquisition of gender identities and society expects women and men to behave according to the expectations of their respective gender role which leads to inequality. Moreover, Industrialization shifted many manufacturing activities to factories, offices. This separation from work at home marked a profound shift in gender relations and gender discourse. Women depended on men to provide for them, and this dependence made male roles more valuable in society, which still remains in the 21st century. According to Interactivity (neo Marxist concept) forms of "inequality, oppression, and privilege" are shaped by interconnected axes of identity and mutually reinforced by social interactions and social, political, and economic structures, such as capitalism, patriarchy, and institutionalized disharmony. Socially, freedom is possible only if all members of society enjoy it equally, otherwise the freedom of one person can jeopardize the freedom of another. As a result, the idea of freedom from a social point of view inevitably leads us to the idea of social justice, and the social status of women is not separate from the general state of society. 

3.The third limitation of man is the power of cognition (cognitive experience). We must trust experiences, and especially whatever we receive through the senses. In order to humanize technology, human beings seek entertainment, art, or play in order to somehow make freedom possible for themselves. In this way, man rebuilds his soul and psyche with the help of technology, and as an element of the system, he comes under the lawful domination of the evolution of the system. According to Schlocky, the scope of technology affects progress in all areas of life, individually and socially, so that man sees his freedom crystallized in it.3 Historically, many notions of rights were authoritarian and hierarchical, with different people granted different rights, and some having more rights than others. In contrast, modern conceptions of rights have often emphasized liberty and equality as among the most important aspects of rights, as was evident in the American and French revolutions. The foundations of human rights began during the era of renaissance humanism in the early modern period. The European wars of religion and the civil wars of seventeenth-century Kingdom of England gave rise to the philosophy of liberalism and belief in natural rights became a central concern of European intellectual culture during the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment. 

Freedom and Art 

In the sense of the creative arts, which bring forth something tangible and reify human thought to such an extent that the produced thing possesses an existence of its own, politics is the exact opposite of an art which incidentally does not mean that it is a science. The point here is not whether the creative artist is free in the process of creation, but that the creative process is not displayed in public and not destined to appear in the world. Hence the element of freedom, certainly present in the creative arts, remains hidden; it is not the free creative process which finally appears and matters for the world, but the work of art itself, the end product of the process. The history of drawing is as old as the history of humankind. People drew pictures even before they learned how to write. Like other art forms, drawing has changed and developed through history. Each new style grew out of the style that came before it. This evolution of drawing styles closely parallels the development of painting. When art and freedom are addressed together, aesthetic considerations have played a big role in the discussion in terms of their prominent political dimensions. A secondary issue, thus, emerges as to whether the philosophical notions of positive and negative freedom can say anything about aesthetics, or conversely, to what extent do aesthetic issues reference freedom. By “aesthetic”, I mean theories of art that include not only notions of the sublime and the beautiful, a traditional connotation of the term since the eighteenth century.4 When talking about freedom with respect to the arts, especially the visual arts, the discussion often focuses on “artistic freedom”. The political ability of an artist to create as he or she sees fit without fear of societal or governmental condemnation or reprisal is an important outgrowth of the modern debates on freedom. Here, the positive–negative liberty debate is a vital aspect. It is a topic that was of particular issue in the West during the twentieth century, where political control and censorship were primary concerns. Indeed, during the Cold War, U.S. intelligence agencies forwarded American art as a symbol of the cultural and creative freedom of democratic nations over that of the communist regimes.5 One of the most difficult issues has to do with art that is commissioned by public institutions, and whether the artwork— especially controversial art—can be censored from public display. Artists insist on the “freedom to” create artwork even with the strong intention to incite outrage, as with Andres Serrano Piss Christ (1987) photograph of a crucifix submerged in his own urine. Berlin makes clear that the negative notion of liberty is essentially political, focused mainly on the non-interference of people in positions of control. It is clear that to be free does not mean that one can do whatever he or she wants. We all accept laws as understandable constraints on what is called laissez-faire freedom. Freedom in the negative political sense essentially means freedom from an oppressive government. Broadly speaking, however, the key is to manage the political powers that seek to limit—or allow others to limit—our intrinsic desire to act in a positive manner. The twofold conditions of liberty are a major undercurrent in the historical development of art as it pertains to human affairs in a political sense. Critics such as Clement Greenberg and others have argued that since the mid nineteenth century modernism was essentially a self-critical condition, that modern art derived its quality and autonomy as a function of its formal properties. In Greenberg’s view, modern art’s historical path progressed as it explored its media’s limitations, “not in order to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence”. Similarly, Marxists such as Lukács and Adorno frame the political discreteness of art’s function in socioeconomic terms: the autonomy aesthetic “is conceived as a social realm that is set apart from the meansends rationality of daily bourgeois existence”.6 

The notion of art’s autonomy is an important one. But this autonomy does not preclude its place in political life. After all, we live and art exists within a society, regardless of its theoretical aspirations or social distinctiveness. Artists have long created works of their own private inspiration, but the history of art—the artifacts that continue to last throughout the ages, particularly those artifacts commissioned by the powerful, as the great majority of historical works have—takes on a larger significance. Once the artist’s work becomes widely known and accepted as a significant example of human creativity, it transcends the individual artist and enters into a broader historical narrative. An artist may create art without intending any overt political purposes. He or she may create an untitled abstract work devoid of narrative or representation. One may be able to appreciate an artwork without reference to anything else but the artwork alone. However, there is still a sense that any intended autonomy is contingent with respect to its historical quality. As Adorno states, “The Hegelian vision of the possible death of art accords with the fact that art is a product of history”. The old art historical adage that “art is a reflection of its time” continues to retain an elemental truth.7 

Concept of freedom

According to Berlin, it is involved with the question “What, or who, is the source of control or interference that can determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that?” Negative liberty refers to the constraints placed against individuals to act in some manner; the absence of obstacles imposed from without. As Berlin states, it answers the question “What is the area within which the subject—a person or group of persons—is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?”. When a positive liberty theorist seeks to determine whether people are free, “the focus is what they have done or how they have done it. What I find is that, in many ways, these conceptions of liberty are two sides of the same coin of human agency. In the positive liberty sense, the human spirit is a horse that wants to run, as it were. It inherently wants to move, to do, to act. These two forces, united as they seem in their influence on human affairs and our innate desire to act, offer a fecund way of thinking about freedom and the arts co-terminally. Berlin was a negative freedom advocate, believing that negative liberty doctrines are more humane and truer to the reality of governing a world where a multiplicity of desires and goals exist coevally. Others, such as Hannah Arendt who regards freedom as something that cannot be enjoyed individually as an inner freedom argue the liberty and freedom have different meanings. While the term liberty can be used as any kind of unencumbered things and ideas, the term freedom can be only used if it refers political meaning in the sense of participating public sphere. Freedom is not a notion which an individual can practice in his or her inner world. It cannot be identified with the idea that human beings cannot be free unless they are independent of what goes on in the world of human affairs. Rather, freedom, is a notion which can be exercised in a public place. It can be constructed and be exercised in political area. Freedom, develops when it is not hidden but appears in a worldly space. In other words, freedom can only fulfil its meaning in public life under the idea of togetherness. An autonomous self cannot exercise real freedom, since it aims at realizing its own freedom. the notion of freedom can be best described in terms of whether it constructs the political in the public realm or not. In the modern world a public sphere which includes every person indiscriminately, in which people participate equally regardless of their economic and social status, does not exist. People participate in their own public spheres which they share with others of similar social standing. That is, a religious person, an atheist person, etc. rarely come together to discuss a common issue in modern societies. There is a strong connection between freedom and politics. Freedom makes sense when the concept of freedom from the inner world of the individual has become a universal public sphere. Plato believed that freedom was bound up with self-discipline and morality. He doubted that the law was able to establish meaningful moral conditions in society without their first being a moral impetus from within people themselves. Nevertheless, he had no objection to the principle of morality being enforced by the law. Without reason and self-discipline, individuals cannot attain freedom, Plato believed, while doubting whether most people possessed these requisite qualities. Freedom certainly did not require the existence of democracy. On the contrary, Plato was keenly aware that the emphasis placed on ‘freedom’, so called by the Athenian democracy, created an ill-disciplined people who, lacking self-control, generated factions, which degenerated into disorder that, in turn, inevitably gave birth to tyrants and dictators. Freedom, to Marx and his followers, is not possible under capitalism. The highly exploitative capitalist system reduces both the working class and their capitalist exploiters to a level of servitude to the system. Some modern Marxists claim that capitalism is even more inimical to freedom than it was in the nineteenth century when Marx analyzed its workings. Contemporary capitalism, so modern Marxists argue, enslaves workers by means of ideological indoctrination, making them compliant to a progressively more exploitative system. Contemporary workers in capitalist societies have been enslaved with ‘chains of gold’: the material trappings of consumer capitalism have hidden the raw nature of exploitation to some degree, but capitalism is still inimical to the development of human potential in a condition of true freedom. 

Women in society of Iran 

About 10,000 years ago, With the advent of agriculture, societies settled down and became sedentary. As a result, kings and other rulers arose and were able to dominate others. Sufficient wealth also led to the growth of violence, sexual access, and domination. During the hunter-gatherer phase of existence, humans were non-hierarchical and relatively egalitarian. This egalitarianism was maintained in spite of tendencies for males to want to dominate. It was maintained because coercion by dominants was limited. Hunter-gatherer societies provided a lot of freedom for men, but were generally oppressive for women. Individuals want to become dominant, and institutions of political freedom are necessary to prevent this from happening. Most human societies have limited the freedom of women, harming both the women themselves and also limiting the wealth of society. 

Important documents in the political history of rights include: 

The Persian Empire of ancient Iran established unprecedented principles of human rights in the 6th century BC under Cyrus the Great. Cyrus established the Persian paradigm of freedom of religion and expression in his empire but was also responsible for maintaining the dignity and autonomy of women of every class. PERSIAN women had more right and privileges than any other ancient culture except for Egypt. Women were treated with the greatest respect. They could supervise men on the job. Women could own land, served in the military, and ran their own businesses. The Cyrus Cylinder was dubbed the "first declaration of human rights" by the prerevolution Iranian government, a reading prominently advanced by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, in a 1967 book, The White Revolution of Iran. The Shah wrote that "the history of our empire began with the famous declaration of Cyrus, which, for its advocacy of humane principles, justice and liberty, must be considered one of the most remarkable documents in the history of mankind." he described Cyrus as the first ruler in history to give his subjects "freedom of opinion and other basic rights". Dr. Gershman while discussing prehistoric humans in Iran; He speaks of the role of women in the emergence of primitive and primitive civilization of that time: "In this primitive society, heavy responsibilities were assigned to women. As a result, an imbalance was created between the duties of men and women, and women became superior to men, and the value and importance of women over men increased. About four thousand years BC, which is one of the brightest periods of motherhood in Iran, house-building with raw clay was common and engraving on the wall was done by women. The social and legal status of women from the migration of Aryans to Iran until the Achaemenid period After the establishment of the Medes in western Iran, the imperial mother regime gradually gave way to the patriarchal regime. The mother kingdom ended with the extinction of the Medes and men and women had equal rights in the Achaemenid rule. After the defeat of the Achaemenids, the social status of the Iranian woman changed and went downhill. Because in the time of the Selukids; Many Greek women and girls lived in Iran; And because in Greece women did not have equal rights with men. Therefore, it affected the situation and destiny of Iranian women. 8 However, discriminatory among women in the field of art and music is increasing recently. For a long time, female musicians in Iran have been trying to prove their presence in society, but most of the time their concerts are disrupted or canceled. The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has announced that it will not issue any licenses for albums containing songs with female singers. Female singers are not allowed to make albums. Their activities are limited to cyberspace. They have little presence in the real world. They never get a chance to practice their art in a professional environment, and perform on stage. Most societies have discriminated against women and such discrimination is still common. In most Islamic societies women are denied many rights. In much of Asia there is even prenatal discrimination, with selective abortion against female fetuses so that more children will be male. The hardships of being a woman in society begins when one wants to step beyond the prevailing stereotypes; That is, where she fights to achieve her desires as a useful person in society. Women must be constantly proving themselves and their abilities so that, perhaps in unequal circumstances, they may still be given a share in social classifications, and all this while an endless cycle of inequality - backwardness - accompanies women. If women stand in the tallest scientific castles, they still have to prove that they are as smart and understanding as men! And if they reach high levels of management, they are still judged by their gender. The existence of unequal conditions makes women unable to gain the necessary experience to work in different fields. And women with ideas and motivation cannot use the facilities of society in an optimal way for economic progress and development. The issue of gender inequality is also very important in the field of women's economic participation. Severe inequality in the rights of men and women in Iranian society and the weakness of labor protection institutions undermine women's self-confidence. As long as there are gender inequalities, women are on a difficult path to "being" and "living “and they are constantly going through a vicious cycle of backwardness. From the time I remember, the political situation in my country had a big effect in my life and in my everyday life till now so. For me, the true art has an element of being free. When it serves the freedom and brings transparency, it has element of being political. I can express my protest in my drawing, in my expression, in the way of my painting. 

Conclusions

The above analysis, in total, demonstrates the strong alignment between the political and the artistic. I have argued that the association of artistic and liberal qualities, as they have manifested themselves throughout human history, are immediate enough to justify understanding the two concepts together. For a major reason for this close affiliation among the artistic, historical, and the political is that they all are intimately tied to the wider context of civilization and its institutions, with the creative artifacts that form the foundation of our shared humanity. The most enduring cultures create the most enduring artwork to help formalize their existence and legitimize the authority of those who commissioned them. Drawing, painting, and sculpture continue to be a way to represent, solidify, and glorify human institutions, whether political, economic, or legal. In fact, political narratives are often attempts to create an aura of power and inevitability supported by the very words and ideas that aesthetically infused objects can instill in an individual. The arts are essentially interior thoughts transubstantiated into sensible objects, generated to affect society in some way. History is an objective story of time and space, one that blends the notions positive and negative liberty into a unified statement about the world. This aspiration, I believe, is also at the core of our spiritual drive and the freedom it desires. 

References: 

1 Yuval Noah Harari- in 2011- in Hebrew in Israel- in English in 2014- at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem-A Brief History of Humankind 

2 http://falsafeh.com/%D8%B3%D9%87- %D9%85%D9%81%D9%87%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A2%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%AF%DB%8C/ طبری اسفندیار 

3 Schelsky, H.: 1965, Der Mensch in der wissenschaftlichen Zivilisation, in: , Auf der Suche nach der Wirklichkeit, Düsseldorf/Köln 

4 Wartenberg, T.E. The Nature of Art: An Anthology, 3rd ed.; Wadsworth Cengage Learning: Boston, MA, USA, 2012. 

5 Cockcroft, E. Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War. Artforum 1974, 12, 39–41

6 Bürger, P. Theory of the Avant-Garde; Theory and History of Literature, v. 4; University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN, USA, 1984. 

7 Robert Edward Gordon- 1 September 2020-The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA-The Philosophy of Freedom and the History of Art: An Interdisciplinary View 

8 Tamadonema.ir Bedford, pp. Cyrus Cylinder (2003). Dandamaev (2010-01-26) Bedford, p. 113 Bedford, p. 134 Kuhrt (1983), pp. 83–97 Grabbe (2006), p. 542 Bedford, pp. 138–139 

ARENDT, Hannah. (1958), Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Meridian Books. ARENDT, Hannah. (2006). Between Past and Future. New York: Penguin Books. Bedford, pp. Cyrus Cylinder (2003). Dandamaev (2010-01-26) Bedford, p. 113 Bedford, p.134 Kuhrt (1983), pp. 83–97 Grabbe (2006), p. 542 Bedford, pp. 138–139 Shakiba Sattar9 BERLIN, Isaiah. (1969). Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berlin, I. Two Concepts of Liberty: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered before the University of Oxford on 31 October,1958; Clarendon: Oxford, UK, 1958. Berlin, I.: 1995, Zwei freiheitsbegriffe, in Freiheit. Vier Versuche, Frankfurt a.M Bürger, P. Theory of the Avant-Garde; Theory and History of Literature, v. 4; University of Minnesota Press:Minneapolis, MN, USA, 1984. Cockcroft, E. Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War. Artforum 1974, 12, 39–41 Freedom, Liberality, and Liberty in Plato’s Laws. Soc. Philos. Policy 2007, 24, 130– 152. Http://falsafeh.com/%D8%B3%D9%87-%D9%85 / طبری اسفندیار Https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/13097Islamic_Republic_of_Iran_r eview_Beijing20.pdf - National Review on Women's Status in the Islamic Republic of Iran Https://doi.org/10.1163/156913308X336507 - Eva Patricia Rakel - University of AmsterdamThe Political Elite, Women, and Journalism in Iran Kanatlı, M. (2017). The Concept of Freedom in Hannah Arendt’s Political Thought Laks, A Max, H.; Adorno, T. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments (Cultural Memory in the Present); Stanford University Press: Stanford, CA, USA, 2002. Plato, THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE, Republic, VII514 a, 2 to 517 a, 7Translation by Thomas Sheehan Robert Edward Gordon- 1 September 2020-The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA-The Philosophy of Freedom and the History of Art: An Interdisciplinary View Schelsky, H.: 1965, Der Mensch in der wissenschaftlichen Zivilisation, in: , Auf der Suche nach der Wirklichkeit, Düsseldorf/Köln Tamadonema.ir Wartenberg, T.E. The Nature of Art: An Anthology, 3rd ed.; Wadsworth Cengage Learning: Boston, MA, USA, Yuval Noah Harari- in 2011- in Hebrew in Israel- in English in 2014- at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem-A Brief History of Humankind