Psychoanalysis in Art History

This special issue of "Art History" brings together original essays by leading scholars in the field of art history and psychoanalysis. Some of the contributors, such as Whitney Davis, Griselda Pollock and Neil Cox, integrate detailed historical/archival research with a psychoanalytic interest in the material. Other contributors, like Mark Cousins, Briony Fer and Margaret Iversen, focus on more theoretical and critical issues. All of the contributors, however, are concerned to develop a methodology which does not trivialize psychoanalytic theory by making it the basis for simple psychobiography of the artist or psycho-iconography of the work of art. The specificity of the medium and the complexity of the psychic mediations are always forgrounded. Several of the authors take the same care in their reading of relevant literary or textual material. Another key concern, perhaps not surprising in this context, is in theorizing the psychic investment of the spectator of works of art. This enquiry may have historical, contemporary or personal dimensions.