Madness and the Muse: Prinzhorn collection
DNALJM
Hans Prinzhorn traveled around Europe collecting the artwork of the insane,
gladly given up by doctors and nurses who had little regard for the artwork of
"degenerates." Many of the artists whose work he collected were later murdered
by the Nazis as part of their eugenics program. All of the work was produced
between 1890 and 1920 and was used by emerging modern artists for insperation.
But rather than seek to duplicate the naive, raw emotions of a child or a
mental patient through an artifically imposed regression like Dubuffet, artwork
in this collection can be surprisingly sophisticated and honest, displaying
compositional complexity and anatomical sensitivity. The artwork contains
personal narratives, calandars and charts meant to impose order in a life
rapidly spiraling out of control in an insitution, religious themes, and
fantasic bestiaries. Of interest to the academic painter, the work can provide
encouragement for working without a support network and also can remind hir of
dynamic possibilites outside of still-lifes and other traditional subject
matter. Skills are always a source of more freedom and not less.
A few of the artwoks can be seen here or found on google:
http://www.psychiatrie-erfahrene.de/eigensinn/Bilder/artworkenglish.htm
A new book that I got off of Amazon.com which I enjoy: Beyond Reason Art and
Psychosis Works from the Prinzhorn Collection
Brand-Claussen, Jadi, Douglas
Jane
http://www.geocities.com/teslathemothgod
new drawing 02-12 updated photo of painting
Dilettante
> Hans Prinzhorn traveled around Europe collecting the artwork of the insane,
like mani
> gladly given up by doctors and nurses who had little regard for the artwork of
> "degenerates."
like Chris
Many of the artists whose work he collected were later murdered
> by the Nazis
like Max
D.
keith o'connor
everything can be made fun of since nothing is sacred.
It is not the sign of a noble character to demean those who have suffered at
the whim of our dark side.
--
take care: Keith
The language of art is not a scientifically accurate language. The language
of art is based upon the application of tendencies and as such creates more
variety of interpretation between people than absolute agreement between
people.
Keith O'Connor
"Dilettante" <hu...@myself.com> wrote in message
news:ba63903f.0402...@posting.google.com...
Thur
youth, rather than any particular era.
Youth has the say in our Modern and Post Modern eras.
I have assumed you are being Ironic when you claim nobility
for anyone who uses other people's suffering to please
themselves, unless somehow you are referring to a hereditary
status?
Thur
"keith o'connor" <ke...@tinmangallery.com> wrote in message
news:xTAXb.16234$iVf1....@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
Dilettante
> It is not the sign of a noble character to demean those who have suffered at
> the whim of our dark side.
Have this written in old english on parchment and framed. While you
are at it look carefully at the text on the left. "murdered by
doctors" is what it says in every case. this is not exactly a reliable
source.
D.
Dilettante
>
> I have assumed you are being Ironic when you claim nobility
> for anyone who uses other people's suffering to please
> themselves, unless somehow you are referring to a hereditary
> status?
Not really true. What may have been true is that they were killed by
some Nazi eugenics program, and if you look at the targets of my post,
they were not the real victims in this case. Jane's thread seems oddly
out of place.
d.
Miriam
Quoting from a website:
Such artists as Alfred Kubin, Paul Klee, Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso
were full of enthusiasm for the Collection, and drew on the works as a
source of inspiration.
Miriam
Klee describes as well the resistance from the churches and the
relatives of the victims, which led to a slow-down and greater secrecy
of the operation, but did not stop it. Till the operation was
conducted more covertly after August 1941, 70,000 people had already
died. By that time every third inmate of a psychiatric institution in
Germany had already died (leading to about 93,000 "free beds" at the
end of 1941 in Nazi terminology) either by being actively killed or by
starvation.
Miriam
is a website to start.
Quoting:
Awareness of sexual abuse has been effectively suppressed over
hundreds of years.[2] The mental health professions have played their
part in that. In this century, Freud's shift from sexual abuse as real
to sexual abuse as fantasy denied generations of victims, and
perpetrators, responsible help. It took the efforts of feminists and
rape trauma specialists, therapists and social workers, to raise
awareness. Systematic studies of the prevalence and effects of abuse
did not take place until the late 1970s and 1980s. The facts emerging
from these studies show that approximately one in four females and one
in seven males have experienced at least one sexual abuse event before
the age of 16, and that the impact of abuse for many of these people
is considerable.[3] These studies confirmed the early claims of
feminists and mental health workers.
http://www.waikato.ac.nz/law/wlr/special_1996/6_seymour.html
DNALJM
>out of place.
>
Umm. . .it's a collection of interesting ART? rec.ARTs.fine?
Jane
keith o'connor
The application of logic, reasoning, proof all necessary in establishing
factual truth.
But, there is another type of reasoning which goes by the name of wisdom. It
is the knowledge of one's self and one's fellow man (and woman). Wisdom does
not need proof of man's inhumanity to man.
It is the dark side that needs proof, yes demands proof, proof that it has
been caught, proof that two wrongs make a right.
I have lived too many years to have not learned the twists and turns of
proof . Why don't you just admit that your dark side needs managing instead
of passing on the blame. Just admit that you fucked up and deal with it -
don't run from it.
--
take care: Keith
The language of art is not a scientifically accurate language. The language
of art is based upon the application of tendencies and as such creates more
variety of interpretation between people than absolute agreement between
people.
Keith O'Connor
"Dilettante" <hu...@myself.com> wrote in message
news:ba63903f.04021...@posting.google.com...
Dilettante
Why don't you just admit that your dark side needs managing instead
> of passing on the blame. Just admit that you fucked up and deal with it -
> don't run from it.
You mean why don't I just admit that you're right and I am wrong. And
you speak of wisdom? The post by Jane smells more fishy every time we
consider it. Why don't you just admit that! Psychiatric patients
murdered by doctors. No, they were put to death as part of the Nazis'
eugenics program but state killing can never be defined as murder. Try
extending the logic of that to all killings committed by the state.
Why don't you just admit you're wrong and "deal with it"? (That little
vogue phrase betrays you.).
Her point, the "pathologising of art" has really nothing to do with
the matter. Innumerable psychiatric patients make art. Simply because
the doctors interpreted this art, as they could have interpreted any
other act by people they had an interest in eliminating, is not
important. This has nothing to do with art. She may have posted this
because she has hitched her wagon to a morally bankrupt cause,
elevating her own self-worth only by constantly deriding someone
else's. So she must grasp at false issues to give her a sense of being
an ethical person. ;
Spare me the lectures on wisdom. Deal with it.
d.
Dilettante
>
> Umm. . .it's a collection of interesting ART? rec.ARTs.fine?
Ummm...no, it isn't. It is just a few doodles and sketches none even
suggesting anything interesting.
D.
DNALJM
>the doctors interpreted this art, as they could have interpreted any
>other act by people they had an interest in eliminating, is not
>important.
The doctors did not "interpret" it, they considered it worthless and were
happy to be rid of it into the care of Prinzhorn. There were a few interested
parties such as the clinc director Karl Wilmanns, who even offered monetary
contributions for the artwork and helped P. to house it.
>This has nothing to do with art. She may have posted this
>because she has hitched her wagon to a morally bankrupt cause,
>elevating her own self-worth only by constantly deriding someone
>else's.
WTF are you talking about?? What agenda am I pushing here, who am I
deriding? Nazis? Doctors that the Nazis contracted to experiment on Jews in
the concentration camps and kill mental patients by gassing them in trucks or
letting them starve and die of neglect?
>So she must grasp at false issues to give her a sense of being
>an ethical person. ;
I wasn't trying to make myself look good by saying it was a crime and a
shame (which it was) that artistically inclined people who were sick were
killed by Nazis. My focus was on the artwork. I bought this great book and
decided to share the contents so that others could enjoy it. You are so lucky
that the state doesn't put the "feebleminded" down anymore, you would be
fertilizer by now.
Jane
G*rd*n
> ...
> WTF are you talking about?? ...
You wonder, oh how you wonder,
But you really dont wa-ant to know....
twang
Dilettante
Before you call others feeble-minded, in itself a cruel and
prejudicial term long ago abandoned by enlightened and humane people,
you should try reading the material at the URL's that you post. You
said to me:
> The doctors did not "interpret" it,...
Then you obviously did not read this part:
"Art pathologized by the
Heidelberger University Psychiatry
Up to the last exhibition catalog the Heidelberg University Psychiatry
Department, which is holds illegitimate possession of the art,
documents the aim of their efforts: the pathologizing of art.
This becomes fully apparent in the way in which they apply a
psychiatric diagnosis to the art of their victims.The name of the
painter, a woman, is unknown. Nevertheless the catalog describes the
unknown artist with the label: Diagnosis: paranoia!
The person and her name have dissapeared but the painting is
identified with "paranoia"!This makes clear that up to this very day
and despite all affirmations by the present holders of the collection
(the Heidelberg University) to the contrary, they implicitly cling to
the ideology of "degenerated art" ("entarteter Kunst"). "
Calling art "degenerated" is indeed an interpretation, or perhaps they
did not teach you enough English at Cooper-Union.
WTF am I talking about? Maybe you should have thought a little more
carefully before trying to prove you have passion by waxing abusive.
You have sided with Mani's obsessive campaign to deride what you think
is modern art, claiming of course that it is a lack of skill you
deride, not the presence or absence of feeling and communication,
which is the real soul of art. This is the lost cause you follow, so
you will be grasping for any way to bolster your false morality.
Too bad your rebuttal could not have been based on an understanding of
your own post.
D.
> Jane
>
> http://www.geocities.com/teslathemothgod
Dilettante
> But you really dont wa-ant to know....
>
> twang
Because she would only find out more about herself.
D.
DNALJM
>prejudicial term long ago abandoned by enlightened and humane people,
Thus the quotes around the term. .
>This becomes fully apparent in the way in which they apply a
>psychiatric diagnosis to the art of their victims.The name of the
>painter, a woman, is unknown. Nevertheless the catalog describes the
>unknown artist with the label: Diagnosis: paranoia!
This seems to be the opinion of the person authoring the website, as the
viewpoints are quite opposite in the book. Of course the book quotes Pr.
himself, looking for similarities between children's art and the art of native
civilizations in order to find a universal artmaking impulse on this "minute
terrestrial globe of ours." Despite the florid Victorian language he sounds
very modern in the respect he affords the artists.
As to the diagnosis, P. was flooded with contributions from all over
Europe. The artworks were submitted with a case number, sometimes with
initials or no name (perhaps to spare a family or the individual the shame of
being a patient, a great stigma at the time), and the diagnosis. He was busy
trying to solicit money for the museum, he couldn't very well conduct a
personal interview for 4,500 works of art now could he?
>This makes clear that up to this very day
>and despite all affirmations by the present holders of the collection
>(the Heidelberg University) to the contrary, they implicitly cling to
>the ideology of "degenerated art" ("entarteter Kunst"). "
So the holders of the collection, expending great cost to keep it housed
archivally, claim that they do so with the utmost resepct, but the critic says
that they have sinister motivations for keeping the diagnosis intact. There's
no shame in having a mental illness, "Dilenttante."
Honestly I just looked for a site with a sample of the images, I didn't even
see any text on it other than a descriptive. Certainly if the person who
authored the site feels that the University who houses the collection is doing
so disrespectfully they are entitled to that viewpoint but I think the tone and
focus of my original post was the artwork, not a political opinion. Funny how
everyone got that but you.
Know what's even more funny? You were the only one to attack the artwork
directly when you said:
"Ummm...no, it isn't. It is just a few doodles and sketches none even
suggesting anything interesting.
You also used my post to make purile attacks at other posters, that wasn't
very respectful of the artwork either now was it?
Jane
Dilettante
I never implied there was.
...but I think the tone and
> focus of my original post was the artwork, not a political opinion. Funny how
> everyone got that but you.
You mean, funny how almost nobody gets anything in this forum, but me.
If your point was the "artwork" rather than the ethical point made
about it, then you condemn yourself to bad taste as opposed to an at
least arguable moral opinion. You post insignificant doodles.
>
You were the only one to attack the artwork
> directly when you said:
>
> "Ummm...no, it isn't. It is just a few doodles and sketches none even
> suggesting anything interesting.
Which is still correct, by the way.
You also used my post to make purile attacks at other posters,
that wasn't
> very respectful of the artwork either now was it?
You mean those doodles? And, for next time, remember to spell it
puerile.
Now you see there is a price to pay for your reflex attacks on modern
art.
D.
DNALJM
>about it, then you condemn yourself to bad taste as opposed to an at
>least arguable moral opinion. You post insignificant doodles.
Then buy the book before you render your "valuable judgement."
>You mean those doodles? And, for next time, remember to spell it
>puerile.
Bee-atch, I've decided you aren't worth the spell checker.
>Now you see there is a price to pay for your reflex attacks on modern
>art.
Because you reached out your virtual palm and gave me a spanking? /yawn
Jane
http://www.geocities.com/teslathemothgod
art without skill=used Kleenex
Dilettante
> >If your point was the "artwork" rather than the ethical point made
> >about it, then you condemn yourself to bad taste as opposed to an at
> >least arguable moral opinion. You post insignificant doodles.
>
> Then buy the book before you render your "valuable judgement."
make judgments that are valuable before trying to defend them. yes,
they are just doodles.
>
> >You mean those doodles? And, for next time, remember to spell it
> >puerile.
>
> Bee-atch, I've decided you aren't worth the spell checker.
maybe now i won't be worth a response either.
>
> >Now you see there is a price to pay for your reflex attacks on modern
> >art.
>
> Because you reached out your virtual palm and gave me a spanking? /yawn
wrong conjuction.
D.