ABSTRACT
One can suppose that the psychology of art began when the first Magdalenian peoples entered the grottos of Lascaux to discover there elaborate realistic wall paintings. Art is a curious and in many ways paradoxical aspect of life. Humans expend great energy and resources on art, though it seems to be of little biological necessity or relevance. Unlike many things, art must be experienced first-hand—to be told about a painting, a building, or a sculpture is wholly unsatisfying. The humanistic tradition in the psychology of art has tended to focus on the motivation to create art and on the meaning of themes in art, and has attended, albeit to a lesser degree, to reciprocal psychological responses of the audience to those motivations and themes. Sigmund Freud was the modern fountainhead of the humanistic approach, and, like most of his opinions, Freud’s insights into art and the artistic temperament derived from self-analysis and from his studies and interpretations of abnormal character.
