Chapter XV. Art

Both Ernst Kris and Freud's artist son Ernst counselled me not to write this chapter, giving as their reason that since Freud had little aesthetic appreciation there could be nothing worth while to say on the subject. With all respect to these authorities, however, I find it needful to make a few points of a clarifying nature. Artists have justly reproached Freud with misunderstanding their aims: justly, because of the imperfection of Freud's exposition. I think it should be possible to smooth out this misunderstanding on both sides.

For some reason that is not at all obvious the exponents of one of the five recognized branches of art, namely painters, have largely appropriated the terms ‘art’ and ‘artist’ as pertaining only to their domain, though occasionally sculptors are also allowed to use them. This is a reversal of the attitude that obtained in Ancient Greece where the term artist was reserved for poets and musicians; painters, sculptors and architects were regarded as mere craftsmen, an attitude derived from the contempt then felt for any manual occupation. In the present chapter, however, we shall follow the current restrictive use of the term.

To begin with it is easy to make two quite definite statements about Freud's attitude to art. He had consistently a high and unstinted admiration for ‘artists’ of whatever kind; this was occasionally tinged with a trace of envy for their superior gifts. Then his enjoyment and appreciation (whether strictly aesthetic or not) of the arts were in this descending order: poetry first, then sculpture and architecture, then painting, and music hardly at all (with a very few exceptions).

Now artists, i.e. painters, have been considerably incensed by what Freud wrote about them. This was most incisively expressed by the distinguished art critic and painter Roger Fry, whose criticisms we shall follow. An initial misunderstanding in such criticisms arises from the fact that when Freud wrote on the subject he had predominantly in m