Artistry of the Mentally Ill: A Contribution to the Psychology and Psychopathology of Configuration - Rilegato

Prinzhorn, Hans

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 3540055088 ISBN 13: 9783540055082

Casa editrice: Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. K, 1972

Riassunto

No one is more conscious of the faults of this work than the author. Therefore some self -criticism should be woven into this foreward. There are two possible methodologically pure solutions to this book's theme: a de- scriptive catalog of the pictures couched in the language of natural science and accom- panied by a clinical and psychopathological description of the patients, or a completely metaphysically based investigation of the process of pictorial composition. According to the latter, these unusual works, explained psychologically, and the exceptional circum- stances on which they are based would be integrated as a playful variation of human expression into a total picture of the ego under the concept of an inborn creative urge, behind which we would then only have to discover a universal need for expression as an instinctive foundation. In brief, such an investigation would remain in the realm of phenomenologically observed existential forms, completely independent of psychiatry and aesthetics. The compromise between these two pure solutions must necessarily be piecework and must constantly defend itself against the dangers of fragmentation. We are in danger of being satisfied with pure description, the novelistic expansion of details and questions of principle; pitfalls would be very easy to avoid if we had the use of a clearly outlined method. But the problems of a new, or at least never seriously worked, field defy the methodology of every established subject.

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Contenuti:

Theoretical Part The Psychological Foundations of Pictorial Configuration.- The Metaphysical Meaning of Configuration.- The Expressive Urge and the Schema of the Tendencies of Configuration.- The Urge to Play (Active Urge).- The Ornamental Urge (Environment Enrichment).- The Ordering Tendency (Rhythm and Rule).- The Tendency to Imitate (Copying Urge).- The Need for Symbols (Significance).- Eidetic Image and Configuration.- The Pictures.- Psychiatric Foreword.- Unobjective, Unordered Scribbles.- Playful Drawings with a Predominant Ordering Tendency (Ornamentation and Decoration).- Playful Drawings with a Predominant Copying Tendency.- Visual Fantasy.- Increased Significance — Symbolism.- Ten Schizophrenic Artists.- Results and Problems.- Summary of the Observations Made in the Pictures Themselves.- Areas of Comparison.- The Nature of Schizophrenic Configuration.- Schizophrenic Configuration and Art.- The Schizophrenic Outlook and Our Age.- Summary.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. K
• Data di pubblicazione: 1972
• ISBN 10: 3540055088
• ISBN 13: 9783540055082
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 274