Mind, Culture, and Art Theory: Approaches to Psychology of Art

Abstract

This article is a critical review of the intellectual relations between History of Art and a field of psychology called "Psychology of Art". Psychology of Art studies the art as a product of human mind from the creator, the receiver and the artistic object’s perspective. The analysis of the ideas behind both artistic productions and society that describes and retains them have undergone various stages of development since the late nineteenth century. This field of study involves art theorists, critics and historians, as well as psychoanalysts and psychologists who have written about the relations among art, mind and culture. The initial contributions of psychoanalysts such as Freud, Jung and Lacan disputed the first critical positions to an opening field. Year later, Kris’ writings, and theories of Psychology of Style and the School of Gestalt were crucial for the future of the discipline. Vygotsky's great contribution to the definition of the Psychology of Art and its boundaries and Gombrich’s studies devoted to the psychology of visual representation, were the natural continuation of previous approaches, as well as Gardner’sand Vigouroux’s works in the past decades. This historical overview shows how the Psychology of Art has been present in many psychological schools of though at the same time, how it is constantly present nowadays and needs a continuity in line with the latest psychological and theoretical trends.