Science, Art, and the
Unconscious Mind
Edited by Lynn Gamwell
Cornell University Press, Binghamton, NY, 2000
When Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, he began
the modern study of a phenomenon that h
as
fascinated human beings for thousands of years. At the same time he opened
a new realm, the unconscious mind, to filmmakers and artists who were inspired
by his theories. This beautifully designed and lavishly illustrated book--written
to commemorate the centenary of Freud's classic work--examines the shifting
roles that dreams have played in twentieth-century art and science. Over the
course of the twentieth century, as scientists have researched the psychology
and physiology of dreams, artists from Odilon Redon and Joan Miró to Jenny
Holzer, Ingmar Bergman, and Laurie Anderson have produced dramatic images
centered in the unconscious. An exploration of this artistic output, this
volume features a hundred color and fifty black-and-white illustrations depicting
work by a broad range of artists in painting, photography, sculpture, video,
film, performance, dance, and other media. In her opening essay, Lynn Gamwell
reviews the psychoanalytic understanding of dreams and explores the ways in
which Freud's theories have been interpreted artistically. The next essay,
by Ernest Hartmann, traces attempts to link somatic and psychological dimensions
of dreaming and to discover parallels between these dimensions and creative
thought. In the final essay, Donald Kuspit assesses the impact of the transition
from the mystical outlook that human beings held in the nineteenth century
to the twentieth-century scientific paradigm for the human mind. A century
of dreamwork is captured in this stunning volume, which concludes with a "dream
archive"--an illustrated catalogue raisonné of approximately five hundred
examples of twentieth-century art about dreams. Contributors include: Lucy
Daniels, Lucy Daniels Foundation, Raleigh, N.C. , Lynn Gamwell, State University
of New York, Binghamton, Ernest Hartmann, M.D., Tufts University School of
Medicine, Donald Kuspit, State University of New York, Stony Brook , August
Ruhs, M.D., Universitätsklinik für Tiefenpsychologie und Psychotherapie, Vienna.
Review by the publisher, Cornell University Press , July 9, 1999.
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