Nostalgia//A Common Theme

Throughout many of the lectures and Crit groups I have attended in the past few weeks, I have noticed that nostalgia and melancholy in art work have been a recurring theme/debate. During our first Gravity lecture, where the theme this year is time, one point that was made by my Crit tutor Andrew Sneddon really stood out to me. He first talked about how in old medicine they taught that melancholia was a physical sickness caused by an imbalance of black bile, yellow bile phlegm or blood, which is what caused soldiers to suffer from homesickness etc. Obviously as time and medicine has progressed we know this isn't true. However, Andrew to some extent believes this is how we should melancholy and nostalgia, and as contemporary artists we should not use nostalgia in our practice, but we should be thinking more progressively. 

Melancholy is given the definition "a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual or prolonged; depression; sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness. Nostalgia is given the definition "a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time." As we can see, both melancholy and nostalgia have deep emotional meanings. In the self set drawing project that we are talking about and starting imminently, I am looking at basing drawings on a past and present relationship I have with Sheffield. Having spent four years of my childhood living half an hour up the road, I feel like those years were a massive part of my life and have so many memories here. Without this nostalgia I wouldn't have the inspiration I do for this project. Memories and our past create who we are, and as artist we are forever being encouraged to use our sense of self. So surely to do this we must use nostalgia? 

However, part of me does agree with the point Andrew and many other contemporary artists have made, I don't think we should use emotions too strongly or let them too deeply affect our work, and as a Creative Art Practice student, I think it's perfectly okay to create a piece of work just because it looks good, but surely nostalgia gives us inspiration and feelings towards our work? I think for a piece to work for us we have to have a relationship with it, which in a huge way I believe is created by memories and nostalgia.