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Artistry of the Mentally Ill

A Contribution to the Psychology and Psychopathology of Configuration

  • Book
  • © 1972

Overview

Authors:
  1. Hans Prinzhorn
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Table of contents (22 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxiii
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  2. Introduction

    1. Introduction

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 1-7

  3. Theoretical Part The Psychological Foundations of Pictorial Configuration

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-9
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    2. The Metaphysical Meaning of Configuration

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 11-12

    3. The Expressive Urge and the Schema of the Tendencies of Configuration

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 12-15

    4. The Urge to Play (Active Urge)

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 15-20

    5. The Ornamental Urge (Environment Enrichment)

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 20-21

    6. The Ordering Tendency (Rhythm and Rule)

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 21-23

    7. The Tendency to Imitate (Copying Urge)

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 23-26

    8. The Need for Symbols (Significance)

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 26-28

    9. Eidetic Image and Configuration

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 28-34

  4. The Pictures

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 35-35
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    2. Psychiatric Foreword

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 37-40

    3. Unobjective, Unordered Scribbles

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 40-44

    4. Playful Drawings with a Predominant Ordering Tendency (Ornamentation and Decoration)

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 44-51

    5. Playful Drawings with a Predominant Copying Tendency

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 51-65

    6. Visual Fantasy

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 65-83

    7. Increased Significance — Symbolism

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 83-95

    8. Ten Schizophrenic Artists

      • Hans Prinzhorn
      Pages 96-228

  5. Results and Problems

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 229-229
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Keywords

About this book

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.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Artistry of the Mentally Ill

  • Book Subtitle: A Contribution to the Psychology and Psychopathology of Configuration

  • Authors: Hans Prinzhorn

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-00916-1

  • Publisher: Springer Berlin, Heidelberg

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media New York 1972

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-662-00916-1Published: 11 November 2013

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXIII, 274

  • Number of Illustrations: 215 b/w illustrations, 16 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Medicine/Public Health, general

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