Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/142

 134 REPORTS

propounded the question of the relation of mental disease to artistic production. The main sources of the representations are eroticism and religion often viewed from the blasphemous side. In content there is a preference for symbolic and delusional analogies, in the matter of form there is shown an exuberance of the means of re- presentation. The general attitude to existence of the mentally deranged is characteristic as well of the artist: dehght in play, .re- version to the ego, arbitrariness, and self-assurance. The question arises whether the morbid condition creates new talents or merely awakens existing ones. In the progress of the psychotic condition, the creative factor must be taken into account.

The lecturer pointed to those modern art forms which show a special relation to the pictures by the mentally deranged and sought to emphasize the difference existing between the latter and the work of creative artists. The mentally deranged labours under the estrangement from the real world as under a compulsion while this estrangement is consciously accomplished by the creative artist. The mentally deranged have been producing sufficient unto them- selves, responsible to no one but to themselves. The artistic ex- pression of the diseased is so akin to modern art because it lies along the line of the fulfillment of longing. The ability to express oneself in plastic form is given to every one to a greater or lesser degree.

The lecturer pointed to the interrelation of primitive art and that of mentally deranged patients particularly with reference to the hermaphroditic figures, the stiff posture, and the grotesque traits. Some of the pictures would cause one to hesitate in deciding whether they are made by savages or by mental patients. The speaker went on to explain the new direction given to racial psychol- ogy which has left behind the former rationalistic interpretation, and expressed the opinion that the close kinship between primitive art and that of the mentally diseased might be regarded as cor- roborating the existence of primal, elemental ideas.

Discussion by Federn, Nunberg, Schilder, Poetzl, Rank, Reik and Freud.

2. Oclober z(f,ip2T.Dr.Eem^eld: Some Remarks on Sublimation.

The lecturer began with a review of the various formulations of the concept of sublimation found in psycho-analytical literature, more particularly in the works of Freud. Sublimation, in contrast to repression, is the resultant issue of instinct and may overcome