CITE: Rank, O. Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 1929
SUMMARY
In this book, Otto Rank explores the relationship between art and psychology, arguing that the creative process is intimately tied to an individual’s personality development.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Rank believes that art is a way of expressing and reconciling one’s inner conflicts, and that artists are able to tap into a universal human desire for self-expression and creativity.
- He argues that the creative process is inherently therapeutic, and that art can be used to heal psychological wounds.
- Rank’s ideas about the role of the artist and the importance of creativity have been influential in both psychoanalytic theory and the history of art.
SELECTED QUOTES
- “Art is the highest form of hope.” (p. 17)
- “The artist is the man who refuses initiation through education into the existing order, remains faithful to his own nature, and thereby restores the natural order through his creative activity.” (p. 29)
- “The urge toward creative expression is the same in everyone, and it springs from the same deep source in the human psyche.” (p. 36)