ABSTRACT
The power of imagery is proverbial and is attested by the familiar adages that "a picture is worth a thousand words" and "seeing is believing." The vanitas tradition in Western art was made possible by the power of imagery as a warning. A review of some of the ways in which imagery exerts power over our minds may help to explain why psychoanalysis of art is possible in providing new insights into familiar works. The psychological significance of the uncanny inspired one of Sigmund Freud's rare discussions of aesthetics, "The Uncanny." In Freud's view of child development, the uncanny denotes regression to a stage of infantile helplessness long since repressed and superseded. George Segal's juxtaposition of living and not-living, of alien and familiar, arouses a feeling of uncanniness in the viewer. The maternal aspect of mirroring can be related to the ambivalent nature of mirror iconography in art and superstition.
