Imago

Sachs, Hans. Art and Personality.

BONAPARTE, MARIE. The Case of Lefebvre.

Reik, Theodor. Psychoanalysis of Jewish Wit.

Hermann, Imre. The Ego and Thinking.

Zullinger, Hans. Observations by Parents on the Sexuality of Young Children.

Sachs, Hans. Art and Personality.—Impressed by the difference between the character of the art treasures at Rome and at Ravenna, Sachs offers reflections on the personalities of the artists. In the Eternal City one sees the late antique and the Renaissance at its height and receives the impression that more than anywhere else this is the stage on which personality in its most pronounced forms has been developed. The works of art at Ravenna belong to another age and are of another sort. They belong to the years A.D. 450 and 550 when Byzantine art first began to flourish. With extreme grace of form and richness of coloring, the murals and mosaics create an impression of timeless remoteness, of an unearthly calm where the two hands on the timepiece of life, passion and ennui, have come to eternal rest. Nothing in these works awaken personal interest or feeling and the personality of the artist is entirely forgotten. An old problem is presented anew by the contrast between Rome and Ravenna. A work of art is regarded as essentially an expression of the personality of the artist. With eyes more keen he sees what is hidden to others and communicates it to the many as something new. And yet there is an art which contradicts this principle, that of primitives, of the Orient, and, above all, of Ravenna. To account for this contrast Sachs analyzes the situation in daydreams. On the one hand the daydream supplies an indispensable pleasure by satisfying in phantasy the wishes which are prohibited in reality. On the other, these daydreams are accompanied by a feeling of guilt springing from infantile masturbation trends and the œdipus complex. The feeling of guilt is diminished by the knowledge that others have the same wishes and thus aris