Synthesis of Psychology and Art. Projects and Practice

Abstract

The article examines the relationship between psychology and art in different historical periods. Their mutual attraction to each other can be noted recently, however, even at the time of the emergence of psychology as a science, its close connection with aesthetics was observed. Both psychology and aesthetics pointed to sensory experience and the sensory sphere as their subject. Cultural-historical psychology was born in many ways from the analysis of art objects. According to L. S. Vygotsky, a work of art acts as an instrument for transforming feelings, and cultural forms of experience arise in the process of its perception. However, a true synthesis of psychology and art occurred in new artistic practices in the 20th century. The artistic search expanded the boundaries of art and aesthetics. It was assumed that art is called upon to change people’s lives, to become a part of it, and life should be built according to the laws of art. The artistic tasks themselves change. The act of perception, a living human reaction to the perceived world becomes the subject of art. The focus is not on objective reality, but on psychological reality, the reality of consciousness. There was an appeal to the expressive characteristics of individual elements of the artistic language – lines, dots, geometric figures, color, sound, movement. In the course of experiments with sound, color, etc., the phenomena of synesthesia were discovered. It was also shown that the phenomenon of intermodality in perception can develop during special exercises. The new artistic practices are based on the idea of transferring impressions from one area of art to another or from one modality to another. Thus, the sounding music or poem is translated into the language of movement. This is not a formal translation, but a creative process in which a new work emerges. The techniques found were later used in trainings on initiating creativity, in methods of aesthetic education, in psychotherapy, revealing the psychological, psychotechnical and pedagogical potential of these practices.