ABSTRACT
The psychoanalytic approach to art history deals primarily with the unconscious significance of works of art. This complex method involves not only the art but also the artist, the aesthetic response of the viewer, and the cultural context.1 It is a method that has been partially integrated with iconographic methods, as well as with feminism, Marxism, and semiotics. Psychobiography, which examines the artist’s psychological development in relation to his or her art, is also a feature of psychoanalytic methodology. Since there are several different schools of psychoanalysis and various psychoanalytic approaches to art within those schools, I will focus on the contributions of three major figures: first Freud, and then Winnicott and Lacan (Chapter 10).
