Some Thoughts About the Artist and His Art

Authors

  • Lesley Caldwell UCL

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1234/fa.v0i65.105

Keywords:

art, creativity, inner world, Martin Creed

Abstract

The article endorses a dissatisfaction with Freud's general accounts of art while maintaining that psychoanalysis does offer a variety of ways of approaching the art work and the artist's own relation to it.  It discusses the process of creative work and draws possible links between studio and consulting room, especially as this addresses the person of the artist and the person of the analyst. I use the work of Joyce McDougall as regards the value of the information gained by considering the differences in artists as artists and artists as analysands. While proposing that the art work must be met on its own terms, and developing this through a discussion of   the work of Martin Creed, I also see the theories of   psychoanalysis and the practice of the consulting room as presenting perspectives that contribute to understanding the meaning of art for both artist and viewer.

Author Biography

Lesley Caldwell, UCL

psychoanalysis unithonorary reader

Downloads

Published

2014-02-06

How to Cite

Caldwell, L. (2014). Some Thoughts About the Artist and His Art. Free Associations, (65), 88–98. https://doi.org/10.1234/fa.v0i65.105

Issue

No. 65 (2014)

Section

Articles

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms: Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).