The Artist and his Objects

It should not come as too much of a surprise to us that the forerunners of man's development of his created objects and his creativity—transitional objects and collective alternates—should appear early in his life when his sense of reality begins to intrude on his illusionary objects, and his ego must develop its own objects to retain the original illusion—especially among those who are endowed with extraordinary sensorial sensitivity.

This study has investigated the special aspects of the objects of the creative artist. In addition to the usual personal objects, the creative person has an elaborate relationship with his created objects. The nature and development of these objects are considered to emerge from the phase of transitional objects. Winnicott's transitional objects and Greenacre's collective alternates, the forerunners of created objects, begin their development in the second half of the first year and are of the same nature. This period of infantile development is when specific creative features of the psychic apparatus, such as collective alternates and the dissociative function of the ego, begin to emerge in the creatively gifted.