Hagman George - The Artists Mind: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Creativity, Modern Art and Modern Artists

The Artists Mind

For the past century psychoanalysts have attempted to understand the psychology of art, artists and aesthetic experience. This book examines how contemporary psychoanalytic theory provides insight into understanding the psychological sources of creativity, modern art and modern artists.

The Artists Mind revisits the lives of eight modern artists, including Henri Matisse, Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol, from a psychoanalytical viewpoint. It looks at how opportunities for a new approach to art at the turn of the twentieth century offered artists a chance to explore different forms of creativity and artistic ambition. Key areas of discussion include:

developmental sources of the aesthetic sense

psychological functions of creativity and art

psychology of beauty, ugliness and the Sublime

co-evolution of the modern self, modernism and art

cultural context of creativity, artistic identity and aesthetic experience.

Through the examination of great artists lives and psychological dynamics, the author articulates a new psychoanalytic aesthetic model that has both clinical and historical significance. This book is essential reading for all those with an interest in the origins and fate of modern art.

George Hagman, LCSW, is a psychoanalyst and clinical social worker practicing in both New York City and Connecticut. He is also a member of the faculty of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis.

Hagman invites the reader to join him on a fascinating and audacious psychoanalytic tour of the minds of significant artists of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Tracing their personal histories he demonstrates how psychological factors contribute to the aesthetic resonance in works of art and architecture. An innovative contribution to the dual fields of art and psychoanalysis, The Artists Mind is an engaging read.

Joy Schaverien, Jungian Analyst and Visiting Professor in Art Psychotherapy at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. Author of The Revealing Image

In his second book Hagman pursues the development of a novel theory about aesthetics and creativity from self psychology and relational perspectives. He sees aesthetic experience as rooted in idealization of early attachment of the infant to his mother. In the present work he expands his ingenious formulations to Modern art which encourages personal idiosyncrasies, subjective expression, and aggressive abandonment of tradition. In this thoughtful and well researched text, he illustrates his theory by a detailed examination of a number of well known painters including, Degas, Bonnard, Duchamp, Pollock and Warhol. The list is extensive enough to enrich our understanding and appreciation of varied and at times opposing attitudes towards the process of artistic creation.

Francis Baudry, faculty New York Psychoanalytic Institute

The authors psychoanalytic readings of the eight artists are compelling like princesses in a fairy tale, each of whom is more beautiful than the last, I found each treatment to seem more fascinating than the other.

Ellen Dissanayake, author, Art and Intimacy: How the Arts Began and Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why

The Artists Mind offers a vitalizing, new analytic perspective on the importance of aesthetics and art as a dialogue with the world, shedding light on the evolution of modern art through the lives and works of major 20th century artists, and expanding our understanding of art into the 21st century.

Carol M.Press, Ed.D., author, The Dancing Self: Creativity, Modern Dance, Self Psychology, and Transformative Education

The Artists Mind

A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Creativity, Modern Art and Modern Artists

George Hagman

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2010
by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.

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2010 George Hagman

Paperback cover design by Lisa Dynan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hagman, George.
The artists mind: a psychoanalytic perspective on creativity, modern art
and modern artists/George Hagman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-415-46705-6 (hardback)ISBN 978-0-415-46706-3 (pbk.)
1. Artists-Psychology. 2. Art-Psychology. 3. Creation (Literary, artistic,
etc.) 4. Art, Modern-19th century. 5. Art, Modern-20th century. I. Title.
N71.H228 2010
701'.15dc22
2010000076

ISBN 0-203-84112-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN: 978-0-415-46705-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-46706-3 (pbk)

To my wonderful children
Peter Davila Hagman and Elena Christine Hagman