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This presentation explored the relationship between creativity, specifically within art, and violence. The major figure used to illustrate the possible dimensions of such a relationship was the seventeenth-century painter, Caravaggio (1571-1610), whose life, reconstructed and interpreted via psychoarcheology, involved escalating levels of violence, including murder, while his paintings became increasingly religious in nature.
The precursors of his progressively impulsive, destructive behavior and paranoid emotional state were seen to have had possible organic and familial etiological components, but the focus of the paper lay in the related dynamics. Remen contrasted the progression of violence in the artist with the progressively spiritual nature of his work, suggesting that his creations represented self-therapeutic attempts to contain inner conflicts, rather than enacting them in more destructive ways. The self-destructive aspects of Caravaggio were addressed in similar fashion, incorporating Karen Horney's concept of the pride system. It was hypothesized that pride injuries produced in him such high levels of self-hate that his early death at age 38 resulted.
Similar illustrations were drawn from other artists, most notably Vincent van Gogh, as well as other historical figures not known primarily for their artistic endeavors, including Churchill, Eisenhower, and Hitler. The presenter stressed, however, that while the psychodynamics underlying violence may be reconstructed in hindsight, the characteristics of any individual's artistic works are not useful as predictors of such behavior.
The discussant, drawing on his own experience with children and adult criminals, indicated that projective drawing measures fail to predict future violence, thus supporting Remen's argument. Symonds underlined the distinction between violent behavior and violent fantasy, which separates hostile thoughts from criminal action. The violent individual was described as “reflexive … impuls