You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Vol. XV, 1946, No. 1.
This paper sets out to discuss the change of function of drawing and the urge to this activity in an artist during a psychotic attack. The patient was a forty-nine-year-old architect who had been observed by the authors for a period of three months at the University Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases in Vienna in 1938. The patient had previously been hospitalized for two short periods in 1932 and 1934, but his productive activity started only in June 1937. From this time until his admittance to hospital in January 1938 he produced a large quantity of drawings, from three to six large sheets daily. There were indications of a mounting urge to draw to which the authors refer as 'a creative spell'. The patient's main delusional ideas centred round his identification with God and his extensive ideas of reference and persecution were clearly linked to this identification. The drawings, ten of which are reproduced, superficially resemble architectural sketches. They were not produced with any artistic intention in mind but represent statements which the patient wishes to validate. The authors analyse various recurring themes in the drawings and relate them to the patient's delusional ideas and his thought processes.
In discussing their findings the authors concentrate first on the course of the psychosis. They assume that the patient had an experience of 'Weltuntergang' and that the psychotic system is an attempt of recapturing the world. The drawing spell has two functions within this framework, namely to prevent further diffusion of instincts and to reassert the truth of the delusions. The authors further discuss the 'identity with God'. They stress the fact that 'all artistic creation tends to be linked to the Divine'. They distinguish between two types of relationship with God 'one in which the artist is God's rival and the other, in which he is his tool'. The patient approximates the second type, but i