Dreams 1900–2000: Science, Art, and the Unconscious Mind (Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080143730X ISBN 13: 9780801437304

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 1999

Synopsis

When Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, he began the modern study of a phenomenon that has fascinated human beings for thousands of years. At the same time he opened a new realm, the unconscious mind, to filmmakers and artists who were inspired by his theories. This beautifully designed and lavishly illustrated book―written to commemorate the centenary of Freud's classic work―examines the shifting roles that dreams have played in twentieth-century art and science.

Over the course of the twentieth century, as scientists have researched the psychology and physiology of dreams, artists from Odilon Redon and Joan Miró to Jenny Holzer, Ingmar Bergman, and Laurie Anderson have produced dramatic images centered in the unconscious. An exploration of this artistic output, this volume features a hundred color and fifty black-and-white illustrations depicting work by a broad range of artists in painting, photography, sculpture, video, film, performance, dance, and other media.

In her opening essay, Lynn Gamwell reviews the psychoanalytic understanding of dreams and explores the ways in which Freud's theories have been interpreted artistically. The next essay, by Ernest Hartmann, traces attempts to link somatic and psychological dimensions of dreaming and to discover parallels between these dimensions and creative thought. In the final essay, Donald Kuspit assesses the impact of the transition from the mystical outlook that human beings held in the nineteenth century to the twentieth-century scientific paradigm for the human mind. A century of dreamwork is captured in this stunning volume, which concludes with a "dream archive"―an illustrated catalogue raisonné of approximately five hundred examples of twentieth-century art about dreams.

Contributors: Lucy Daniels, Lucy Daniels Foundation, Raleigh, N.C.; Lynn Gamwell, State University of New York, Binghamton; Ernest Hartmann, M.D., Tufts University School of Medicine; Donald Kuspit, State University of New York, Stony Brook; August Ruhs, M.D., Universitëtsklinik für Tiefenpsychologie und Psychotherapie, Vienna

About this title

About the Author

Lynn Gamwell is Director of the Art Museum at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and she curates the Gallery of Art and Science in cooperation with the New York Academy of Sciences. She is coauthor with Donald Kuspit of Health and Happiness in Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde Art and with Nancy Tomes of Madness in America: Cultural and Medical Perceptions of Mental Illness before 1914, both from Cornell.

From Library Journal

One hundred years ago, Freud shook the Western world with The Interpretation of Dreams, which argued that the manifest dreams we remember contain symbolic references to powerful feelings and desires in the unconscious. The book profoundly influenced the arts, especially the Surrealist movement. Compiled by Gamwell (Health and Happiness in 20th-Century Avant-Garde Art) to commemorate Dreams' centenary, this collection of essays helps to clarify the history of psychoanalysis--often misunderstood and still debated--and its social impact. Although it is an exhibition catalog for a show scheduled to travel to New York, Vienna, and Paris, it stands alone as solid cultural history and fascinating reading. Broad in scope, it contains examples from all the arts including dance, film, and installation. The book is packed with illustrations, many of which are small--but don't let that stop you from buying this book. Well produced, informative, and accessible, this book will appeal to readers involved with psychology, any of the arts, or Western history in general.
-Susan M. Olcott, Columbus, OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 080143730X
• ISBN 13: 9780801437304
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Gamwell Lynn