Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development

Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development by Atkinson, Charles Francis. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780393305746.

"[Ranks thought] has implications for the deepest and broadest development of the social sciences . . . and of all [Ranks] books, Art and Artist is the most secure monument to his genius." ―Ernest Becker Along with Adler and Jung, Otto Rank was one of the intellectual giants in the inner circle around Sigmund Freud. Art and Artist, his major statement on the relationship of art to the individual and society, pursues in a broader cultural context Freuds ideas on art and neurosis and has had an important influence on many twentieth-century writers and thinkers, beginning with Henry Miller and Anais Nin. Art and Artist explores the human urge to create in all its complex aspects, in terms not only of individual works of art but of religion, mythology, and social institutions as well. Based firmly on Ranks knowledge of psychology and psychoanalysis, it ranges widely through anthropology and cultural history, reaching beyond psychology to a broad understanding of human nature.