ABSTRACT
Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz's Die Legende vom Künstler is the classic art-historical study of artistic mythology. First published in 1934, it possesses an appeal well beyond what one could expect of an 80-year old German-language scholarly book. In it, Kris and Kurz analyze oft-repeated topoi of artistic creativity and illuminate their origins in pagan myths, and do so in a manner that is at once immediately approachable and profound in its implications. Kris's text operates on multiple levels structured around the phenomenon of defensive ego mechanisms, the ways in which the conscious self creates structures of thought that seem logical to it in order to ward off perceived threats. Kris sees in Messerschmidt a chance to examine such mechanisms as manifested in art. Kris relies on three distinct categories of source material to create his picture of Messerschmidt: the sculptures themselves, Nicolai's account, and various legends and myths about Messerschmidt's behavior that have survived.
