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The relation of psychoanalysis to art has always been uneasy for many different reasons. Probably the most important is that artistic products and the process of their creation are not investigated to any great degree in the psychoanalytic situation—or, if they are, there is no systematic reporting of them. The analysis of artists produces other kinds of data, such as their conflicts, their childhoods, their interpersonal and object relationships. Whatever the reasons, the work of Ernst Kris and Phyllis Greenacre is the worthy standard by which to judge what psychoanalysts do, or can do, in that realm.
Gilbert Rose's book, The Power of Form, is not in the path blazed by Kris and Greenacre. He subtitles his book, "A Psychoanalytic Approach to Aesthetic Form." It is psychoanalytic, but it is withdrawn from the person of the artist and the person of the appreciator. The central subject of Rose's treatise is the artistic product itself and the "space" between it and the above two people. Psychoanalysts, who, after all, deal with people, may be put off by Rose's thesis. Nevertheless, it deserves serious consideration.
Rose's theory of aesthetic creativity and aesthetic experience is concerned solely with form, quite divorced from content. Motives (drive discharge and defense in the context of conflict) are excluded from Rose's discussion because motives are a part of content. He is pointedly explicit about this and acknowledges that his orientation is a departure from the standard psychoanalytic approach that principally addresses motives. Because Rose avoids motive-content, his formulations must utilize corresponding psychological terms which describe more formal, relatively nonconflictual aspects of mental functioning. Rose uses, as explanatory, three aspects of ego functioning: 1) orientation in and discrimination of time (time as fused and/or distinct); 2) orientation in and discrimination of space (space as blurred and/or sharp); and 3) sense of self (sel