IF FREUD WERE A SCULPTOR

Victor Bloom MD

A decade ago I had the privilege of attending a talk by a famous teaching psychoanalyst, Richard C. Simons of Denver, Colorado. He was reading a paper he wrote which had been published in the International Review of Psychoanalysis. It was about 'applied psychoanalysis', which has to do with the analysis of literature and art, biography and history, politics and popular culture, using Freud's methods of interpretation and knowledge of the mechanisms of the human mind. Some of Freud's original works gave a deeper understanding to famous works of art, for example, Michaelangelo's "Moses."

Ever since the early part of this century, psychoanalysts have been commenting on significant works of art.www.vollmerwatches.org

Freud got his idea of the Oedipus Complex from Sophocles tragedy, "Oedipus Rex." He found a manifestation of this complex again in Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

In more recent times psychoanalysts have attempted to deepen their underst_anding of the wellsprings and roots of creativity, the creative process. For a long time it seemed common knowledge that there was often an overlap between creativity and mental illness. Even now there is an annual international conference with the theme, "Creativity & Madness." The papers are often psychobiographies of writers and artists, attempting to show the relationship of their early life and development to the content and style of their art productions.

I find this a fascinating field of inquiry, especially as I find my patients tend to become more creative as a result of our psychoanalytic investigations. My own idea is that the process of opening up the unconscious and undoing repression, leads to greater spontaneity, playfulness and access to basic emotions, which had previously been blocked off. Many writers complain of "writers-block" and the explanation for it is the unconscious need for control and fear of rejection. Exaggerated fears come from a troublesome childhood and family life and/or inherited neurochemical imbalance, such as manic-depression (also called 'bipolar-disorder').

So now we come to Gustav Vigeland, Norway's great sculptor. Dr. Simons' paper related the process of creativity to severe losses in childhood. He had access to Vigeland's dreams and biography and was asked by the curator of the Vigeland Museum in Oslo, Toni Wikborg, to interpret some of the dreams that Vigeland committed to paper in the early part of this century. Simons then sought to show connections between Vigeland's dreams, which reveal his unconscious strivings and mechanisms, and his actual completed sculptures.

The paper I listened to became obscure to me, as I could not keep pace with the many abstract conjectures. I had to give the speaker the benefit of the doubt, as he was quite famous as a teacher of psychoanalysis. However, toward the end of the paper, he showed slides of the actual sculptures, and I was stunned and en'thralled. I had never seen such emotional characterizations of human beings in my life. There were only a half dozen such slides and the talk was over, but it was the visual graphics, rather than the written and spoken word which captured my imagination.

I am sure that most sculptors of the human form would agree that they were attempting to capture significant aspects of the human condition in their work. At this time I had the good fortune to have as a best friend, a sculptor who was willing to talk about his motives and feelings in creating a statue. I, in turn, gave him my Freudian speculations, which he found interesting. Some of my interpretations were dismissed out of hand, while others were graciously accepted. We learned from each other.

The talk and slides by Dr. Simons were a point of departure for me. I was so fascinated by Vigeland's work that I obtained a picture book (now out of print) of photographs of his statues, a biography in English, anód actually went to Oslo to see the statues in person and up close. The curator and biographer, Toni Wikborg, was more than gracious and cooperative in giving me a private tour of the museum, which contains his living quarters, library and ashes. She was willing to discuss Vigeland's life with me.

She was struck by the extent of Vigeland's conflict and ambivalence to women. In his work there were many beautiful depictions of women and loving relationships with men, but there were also many statues filled with anger and hate toward female figures. Similarly, there were statues of parent-child relationships, again with scenes of love, playfulness and joy, and then anger, rage and destructiveness. The interesting curiosity of Vigeland's life and work is the paradox of his works showing children in all their variety, while in his real life, he avoided and abandoned his own two children. All he would do w'as pay child-support, but he never wanted to see them again.

I think Vigeland was bipolar. We cannot imagine the intensity of emotion which assault those with this neurochemical imbalance. He had a cruel father and a kind, loving, nurturant mother, and the boy felt intensely how he was treated. This neurochemical imbalance renders ordinary defense mechanisms dysfunctional, and so there is little impediment to plumb the depths of primitive emotions and symbols. Put this understanding together with a gene for genius and talent, and you have a great artist. He could deal with sculptured children, but not his own of flesh and blood. His own children would have stirred up too many painful memories, I am sure.

Freud depicted the human life cycle and stages of development in words, while Vigelanid depicted it without comment, in granite and bronze. Taken together, the two comprise a comprehensive view of the human condition.

Vigeland sculptures and text can be accessed by using your search engine, typing in "Gustave Vigeland". His sculptures never leave Oslo, but you can get images and explanations from the Internet.

Dr. Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and corresponding editor of their quarterly journal, Academy Forum and on the editorial board of the Detroit Medical News. He welcomes comments and questions at his e-mail address:

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