Modern Melancholy
Jane Cavalier ’14, Class of 1954 Intern
Published by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College
2013, 2 pages
The artists selected for this exhibition express the melancholic condition within a contemporary context and raise questions about what distinguishes melancholy today. In a society of constant sensory stimulation, instant gratification, and hedonistic saturation, have happiness and satisfaction become an obligation? Have we attained the object of our desire but lost the reason for its desirability? Through their deliberate interpretations of melancholic subjects and settings, the artists in this exhibition realize the vitality that emerges as the melancholic sees opportunities everywhere to mourn this lost desire. In fact, melancholy’s redemption lies precisely within those infinitely unfolding creative and intellectual possibilities that it reveals.