Collecting An Unruly Passion * Psychological Perspectives (Princeton Legacy Library) - Hardcover

Muensterberger, Werner

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691033617 ISBN 13: 9780691033617

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1993

Synopsis

From rare books, valuable sculpture and paintings, the relics of saints, and porcelain and other precious items, through stamps, textiles, military ribbons, and shells, to baseball cards, teddy bears, and mugs, an amazing variety of objects have engaged and even obsessed collectors through the ages. With this captivating book the psychoanalyst Werner Muensterberger provides the first extensive psychological examination of the emotional sources of the never-ending longing for yet another collectible. Muensterberger's roster of driven acquisition-hunters includes the dedicated, the serious, and the infatuated, whose chronic restlessness can be curbed--and then merely temporarily--only by purchasing, discovering, receiving, or even stealing a new "find." In an easy, conversational style, the author discusses the eccentricities of heads of state, literary figures, artists, and psychoanalytic patients, all possessed by a need for magic relief from despair and helplessness--and for the self-healing implied in the phrase "I can't live without it!" The sketches here are diverse indeed: Walter Benjamin, Mario Praz, Catherine the Great, Poggio Bracciolini, Brunelleschi, and Jean de Berry, among others.

The central part of the work explores in detail the personal circumstances and life history of three individuals: a contemporary collector, Martin G; the celebrated British book and manuscript collector Sir Thomas Phillipps, who wanted one copy of every book in the world; and the great French novelist Honoré de Balzac, a compulsive collector of bric-a-brac who expressed his empathy for the acquisitive passions of his collector protagonist in Cousin Pons. In addition, Muensterberger takes the reader on a charming tour of collecting in the Renaissance and looks at collecting during the Golden Age of Holland, in the seventeenth century. Throughout, we enjoy the author's elegant variations on a complicated theme, stated, much too simply, by John Steinbeck: "I guess the truth is that I simply like junk."

Originally published in 1993.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Werner Muensterberger (born 1913 in Germany), is a collector of African art, a psychoanalyst and an ethnopsychiatrist. As a youngster, certain collectors, including his kinsman, Eduard von der Heydt, introduced him to ethnographic art. After immigrating to the United States in 1947, with $100 and two African sculptures, one a Guru mask, Muensterberger continued to collect African art, practice psychoanalysis and taught ethnopsychiatry. Returning to the U.S. in 1985, from London where he had "retired" in 1974, Muensterberger reopened his private practice. Muensterberger has written books and articles on ethnographic art, including Collecting: An Unruly Passion (1994). This article contains photographs of certain African sculptures in Muensterberger's collection, most notably the Guru mask, and is followed by some Thoughts on Collecting, a dialogue between the article's author and Muensterberger.

From Kirkus Reviews

A blend of compelling anecdotes and dull psychoanalysis, as Muensterberger (an N.Y.C. psychoanalyst) examines the whys and hows of manic collecting. Collecting, Muensterberger establishes at the outset, can be an ``all-consuming passion''--whether the quarry be seashells, books, paintings, or women (he cites Don Juan as a prototypical collector). The act of accumulating repeated examples of a beloved collectible, he says, reduces ``the tension between id and ego'' and becomes ``an experiment in self-healing''-- invariably, of a childhood trauma or anxiety. A magical relationship develops between collector and object, most blatantly in aborigines who collect heads or in the faithful who gather saints' bones, but evident in all collecting. Upon this familiar premise (that collecting is a sign of insecurity), which sometimes leans towards reductionism (belief in the power of relics is ``an illusory attempt at self-preservation''), Muensterberger lays a banquet of fine stories. The centerpiece consists of three psychobiographies: of Thomas Phillips, a cruel and selfish man who longed to possess one copy of every book in the world; of the novelist Honor‚ de Balzac, obsessed with bric- a-brac; and of ``Martin G.,'' an acquaintance of the author's who adored porcelain, bronzes, netsuke, and other objets d'art. Around these three men flutter a host of other collectors, from Petrarch (who had a passion for coins) to Mario Praz (who spent his honeymoon collecting Roman antiquities) and the 17th-century Dutch who spilled fortunes on tulips. Almost all are men; most are smart; many are aware of the extent of their mania; and the one certain rule that governs them all is that they reach no saturation point: Collecting is the addiction par excellence. Too ideological to entrance most readers--but students of psychology will want to add this to their collections. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0691033617
• ISBN 13: 9780691033617
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 324