The Collective Dream in Art : : A Psycho-Historical Theory of Culture Based on Relations between the Arts, Psychology, and the Social Sciences / / Walter Abell.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP e-dition: Art & Architecture eBook Package
• VerfasserIn: Abell, Walter,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2013]; ©1957
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Reprint 2013
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (378 p.) :; 108 halftones

The Collective Dream in Art is a pioneer work in the synthesis of art interpretation. Believing that no existing interpretive approach to art is in itself the whole answer to understanding a work of art, Professor Abell has attempted to correlate the various critical approaches to visual art and the methods and points of view used by specialists in the fields of the social sciences, humanities, and psychology and psychoanalysis. The result is a single integrated theory and method which is applicable and valid for all artistic creation.In Part I, Professor Abell examines the pros and cons of various approaches to cultural expression; he concentrates on the psychoanalytical approach of Freud and his followers and of other psychoanalysts and on the ideas of the materialist schools of historiography. From them he welds a new framework of interpretation, which he calls the psycho-historical theory. He tests and applies it in Part II to the culture of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries in Western Europe, and reaches some new conclusions about the meanings of some common medieval motifs. Part III contains pertinent essays on the implications of the psycho-historical theory for the history of art, the role of the artist, and the relationship of artistic expression to society.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- ACKNOWLEDGMENT -- CONTENTS -- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS -- PART I. DEVELOPMENT OF THE PSYCHO-HISTORICAL THEORY -- Chapter I. INTRODUCTION -- Chapter II. PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURE -- Chapter III. HISTORICAL AND MATERIALIST INTERPRETATIONS OF CULTURE -- Chapter IV. THE THEORY OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS -- Chapter V. THE TENSION-IMAGERY PROCESS IN PSYCHO-HISTORICAL INTEGRATION -- Chapter VI. TENSION IMAGERY AND CULTURE IN PSYCHO-HISTORICAL INTEGRATION -- Chapter VII. MYTH AND NEAR MYTH IN PSYCHO-HISTORICAL INTEGRATION -- Chapter VIII. TENSIONAL TRANSFORMATION -- Chapter IX. CORRELATIONAL SUMMARY -- PART II. A PSYCHO-HISTORICAL STUDY OF MEDIEVAL WESTERN CULTURE AND ITS LOST BACKGROUNDS -- Chapter Χ. ART AND MYTH IN MEDIEVAL WESTERN EUROPE — WITH SUGGESTED EQUIVALENTS FOR LOST PREDECESSORS -- Chapter XI. MYTH AND HISTORY IN SOME NEOLITHIC CULTURES -- Chapter XII. MYTH AND HISTORY IN THE DARK AGES -- Chapter XIII. MYTH AND HISTORY IN THE MIDDLE AGES -- Chapter XIV. REALISM , ABSTRACTION, AND PSYCHO-HISTORY -- Chapter ΧV. THE PSYCHO-HISTORICAL THEORY; RECAPITULATION AND EXPANSION -- PART III. ASPECTS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE PSYCHO-HISTORICAL POINT OF VIEW -- Chapter ΧVI. SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR THE HISTORY OF ART -- Chapter XVII. TOWARD A UNIFIED FIELD IN CRITICAL STUDIES -- Chapter XVIII. THE VOCATION OF THE ARTIST -- Chapter XIX. ART AND SOCIETY: CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL CONFLICTS -- NOTES -- INDEX -- PLATES