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.
Deutsch speculates on the origin of the creative passion of the artist and the reason for his choice of medium. Perception of external objects is based on early cathected sensory perceptions of sensations and movements within our own bodies, later formed into a body image. The body image is the precursor of object representation. The choice of medium by the artist is based on the impairment of certain sensory modalities at an early stage of development when the means for handling a threatened reality should have been unlimited. At this point, the ego brings into service another sensory faculty to compensate synesthetically for the loss. This faculty then remains the supreme modality for resolution of primal conflict. In sculptors, it is the tactile sense. Once the modality is established, it becomes re-enforced in subsequent phases of development.
In artistic creation, ego, id, and superego become united; this unity gives rise to the power and passion necessary for the resolution of the unconscious conflict. The act of creation requires both the inspirational phase with use of uninhibited infantile ego forces and the later elaborational phase with its mature synesthetic ego functions. The work of art can never represent the final solution since the appeasement of the unconscious conflicts lasts only during its creation. In the true artist this basic and successful means of exploiting and resolving conflict will not be threatened by analysis. The writer supports his speculations by illustrations from the lives of three artists, Rodin, Kollwitz, and Ambrosi.