Ernst Kris and the art of the mentally ill1

Ernst Kris, a gifted art historian as well as an eminent psychoanalyst, had little regard for the aesthetic value of the spontaneous artistic products of the mentally ill, considering them to be of interest only for the insight they might provide about the patient's psychopathology and unconscious conflicts. Recent scholarship and developments in the art world warrant a critical review of his position, which appears to have derived from his adherence to classical and Renaissance criteria. The works of two untrained and psychiatrically disturbed artists are offered as evidence of their potential aesthetic worth.     

绘画艺术疗法在临床应用中的广阔前景

绘画艺术疗法在欧美地区已经得到广泛的应用,成为了心理咨询与治疗的主要技术之一,但在我国是近10年来才开始兴起。绘画艺术疗法作为一种独特的心理治疗手段,在精神分裂症、抑郁症、儿童孤独症、癌症等其他临床疾病的治疗过程均有着独特的疗效。本文将从其理论和作用机制、临床应用现状及应用前景等方面进行阐述。     

Fundamentalism and the masculine body: The case of Jewish Ultra-Orthodox men in Israel

The predominant model in the literature on fundamentalism focuses on the tense relationship between contemporary radical religious movements and their environment. The characteristic violence that has made fundamentalism notorious is conventionally explained in terms of defensive or offensive reactions to the challenge of the modern secular society. In light of recent developments in the fundamentalist world, we propose to employ a novel analytic framework to update and revise the current conceptualization. Our argumentation is based on extensive fieldwork in a particular case of Jewish fundamentalism. We introduce into the agenda of fundamentalism research a category conspicuously absent thus far: the body. Results of ethnographic study of Ultra-Orthodoxy in Israel throw light on the very existence of fundamentalist body, and emphasize its implications for better understanding the fundamentalist predicament. The body poses a major problem to fundamentalists and plays a key role in their typical behavior and particularly in their violence. Discussing fundamentalism in terms of the body allows us to see its militancy as a solution to intra-fundamentalist problems that emerge in advanced stages of the movements' life, on the one hand, and paradoxically as a means towards reconciliation with the movements' environment normally regarded as its enemy, on the other hand. In the case presented here the fundamentalist violence is manifested in various hitherto unexplored ways including an enthusiastic service in the military of the nation-state. Such peculiar violence indicates present-day fundamentalist experimentation in an attempt to establish new possibilities of coming to terms with ever changing social and political reality, while at the same time to pursue revolutionary options of radical religious experience.     

Narratives of therapeutic art-making in the context of marital breakdown: older women reflect on a significant mid-life experience

This paper explores the narratives of three women aged 65–72 years. They reflected on an episode of therapeutic art-making in midlife, which addressed depression associated with marital crisis and breakdown. The narrative analysis focused upon on the ways in which participants narrated the events leading up to their participation in therapeutic art-making; the aspects of therapeutic art-making that continued to be given significance; the characters given primacy in the stories they told about their journey through therapy and marital breakdown; meanings, symbolic and otherwise, that participants ascribed to their artwork made during this turning point in their lives; and aspects of the narratives that conveyed present-day identities and artistic endeavors. The narratives revealed the complexity of the journey through marital breakdown and depression into health, and showed that therapeutic art-making could best be understood, not as a stand-alone experience, but as given meaning within the context of wider personal and social resources. Participants looked back on therapeutic art-making that occurred two decades earlier and still described this as a significant turning point in their personal development. Art as an adjunct to counselling/therapy was not only symbolically self-expressive but provided opportunity for decision-making, agency and a reformulated self-image.     

ANIMALIA,HOMO, AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Abstract. I selectively and critically review the state of knowledge about human evolution and the place of humans vis‐à‐vis living apes, with emphasis on bipedal posture and locomotion, expansion of the brain and associated cognitive capacities, speech, tool behavior, culture, and society. I end with a personal perspective on God and Heaven.     

What Kind of Paintings Inspire Children when Viewing Art?

Viewing art inspires creativity, which can encourage learning in art education. A previous study revealed that the type of artwork and the way art is viewed affects adults' inspiration; however, no study exists concerning the way children are inspired by viewing art. Thus, the current study aimed to examine whether children's age group/grade level, art style (figurative or abstract), and artwork creators (children or adults) influence children's inspiration, and whether the effects of the art style and creators vary by children's age group/grade level. An online questionnaire survey was conducted with the help of 600 pairs of parents and their elementary-school-aged children. They were asked to view eight paintings that differed in terms of the artists and their individual style and they then rated their inspiration experience when viewing each artwork. The results revealed that children were more inspired when viewing abstract, rather than figurative, paintings, and the effect of the type of painting differed in the third and sixth grades. Additionally, children gained more inspiration by viewing paintings created by children rather than by adults; a difference observed in all grade levels.     

Portraits as displays

Cynthia Freeland’s investigation of four kinds of ‘fidelity’ in portraiture is cut across by more general philosophical concerns. One is about what might be called the expression of persons--the persons or ‘inner selves’ of portrait subjects and of portrait artist: whether either is possible across each of the four kinds of fidelity, and whether these two kinds of expression are in tension. More fundamental is the problem of telling how self-expression is at all possible in any of these forms. Finally, she wonders how photography affects all these questions. This comment addresses portraiture not so much in terms of the four fidelities, but with another quartet of concepts: four ordinary types of ‘display’, in terms of which we see how artists’ self-expression is possible in all these forms, also including photography. Its key idea is that portraits are displays simply by being pictures or sculptures, which are kinds of artifacts, hence things that we perceive as having intentional affordance: that is, as being intentionally made ‘for’ something.

创造者与大学生群体创造性思维品质的比较

比较两类群体在创造性思维品质的敏捷性、灵活性、深刻性和独创性四个方面的差异,进而分析差异产生的原因。采用词汇联想测验收集数据,被试为28位社会科学和艺术领域的创造者,30位相应学科大学生。结果:思维的深刻性和独创性方面差异显著,创造者明显优于领域新手,其他两方面没有显著差异。结论:作为专家的创造者在创造性思维的深度方面明显优于领域新手。在创造性人才的培养方面,应当注重学生思考力和思考深度的培养。     

中国画审美一致性的专业知识效应:一项fNIRS研究

本研究结合fNIRS技术,考察了美术训练学生和普通学生在中国画审美一致性上的差异。行为上,虽然两组被试在审美评分上没有显著差异,但在评分一致性上,美术训练学生相比普通学生在“好看”评分上更一致。脑活动上,美术训练学生右侧颞顶联合区的16通道和24通道的神经活动一致性显著高于普通学生,且美术训练学生的神经活动一致性与“好看”评分呈负相关。本研究揭示了艺术专业知识对中国画审美的重要性,且神经活动一致性可作为中国画审美判断的一项潜在神经标记。     

Judaism and Theology In Martha Nussbaum's Ethics

The writings of Martha Nussbaum broadly defend an account of transcendence as internal, always rooted in the human context. Her account implies that any and all projects of normative theological ethics are superfluous, since they transcend the natural bounds of human experience and reason. This essay points toward a space for theology, specifically Jewish theology, in Nussbaum's work, through an analysis of her recent philosophical and autobiographical writings on Judaism. Nussbaum's account in Upheavals of Thought associates Judaism with carnality and vulnerability; this essay supplements her account by pointing to a non-natural origin of emotional judgments in some of the texts Nussbaum treats. This move serves to temper the emphasis on autonomy in liberal Jewish thought, and provides an account of transcendence which can serve as the basis of a more traditional Jewish theological ethics.