The Function of Drawings and the Meaning of the 'Creative Spell' in a Schizophrenic Artist

Psychiatric interest in the art of the insane dates back well over eighty years. Though many of the several hundred contributions listed in recent bibliographies1 start from clinical material, most of them are explicitly or implicitly centered around a crucial problem: the relationship of genius and insanity. The problem is an ancient one in the world of learning and speculation. It was first and with remarkable wisdom posed by Plato. His distinction between the 'productive insanity' of the creative genius and the pathology of insanity itself approximates formulations suggested by contemporary psychoanalytic insight. In the psychiatry of the nineteenth century the problem was reintroduced by Lombroso. Under his ægis much time was spent in a search for insanity in the genius. Since 1920 a shift of position has occurred: under the influence of the expressionistic and surrealist movements in contemporary art there has been a search for the genius in the insane. This point of view dominates Prinzhorn's volume on the subject (1922), (1922), but there is reason to believe that his eloquent æsthetic partisanship during the last two decades has delayed rather than accelerated interest in the clinical problems with which the study of the productions of the insane confront us. When we speak here of the 'art' of the insane, we are not considering æsthetic values, but merely recognizing the fact that the productions are 'of the nature of art'.

Detailed clinical case histories and clearly formulated propositions are not plentiful in the literature. In most cases authors refer to the creative activity of psychotics for the sake of illustration