ABSTRACT
One vital feature of Marion Milner's thought was the treatment of symbolism as belonging to human flourishing and not only pathology. This function of symbolism is understood as carrying one's affections and interests from an earlier to a later focus, enabling their transfer to new objects. In this relation, what is symbolized is what is left behind, its interest being transformed into interest of the symbol. Some painting, like some poetry and drama, makes this transition between the imaginary and the actual more or less thematic. This occurs, for instance, in the case of some Rembrandt self-portraits, because they bring us up against that issue of how the artist as artist and as a person living his life may be related each to the other. The medium is conceived to include the traditions of pictorial usage and, in the case of the Rembrandt self-portrait, the situation in which painter, image, and viewer can be interrelated through the painting.
