Hans Prinzhorn (1886–1933)

More than 70 years after its first publication in German, Artistry of the Mentally Ill by Hans Prinzhorn remains a classic concerning the borderland between psychiatry and art, illness and self-expression. The drawings, paintings and sculptures collected and analyzed by Prinzhorn are the products of artistically untrained and unpracticed persons inmates of asylums. This book represents one of the first attempts to analyze the artistic work of the mentally ill. Completely spontaneous they are show more in sharp contrast to more recent collections which are the products of occupational therapy or psychotherapy. Before Prinzhorn, works by the mentally ill were considered curiosities, never the subject of scientific or artistic analysis. However, to Prinzhorn they were "the eruptions of an universal human creative urge counteracting the autistic tendencies toward isolation. Prinzhorn demonstrates surprising parallels between his collection and those by children, and between ancient Greek cultures and primitive ones."

Das erstmals 1922 im Verlag Julius Springer, Berlin, erschienene Werk „Bildnerei der Geisteskranken“ von Hans Prinzhorn ist heute längst ein Klassiker. Entstanden sind diese Werke zwischen 1890 und 1920. Generell galten damals Bilder von Geisteskranken als erstaunliche, aber im Grunde unverständliche Hervorbringungen eines geistigen Totenreiches. Für Prinzhorn waren sie Durchbrüche eines allgemein menschlichen Gestaltungsdranges, der den autistischen Abkapselungstendenzen der Geisteskrankheit entgegenwirkt. Prinzhorn war vor allem an den in den Bildwerken wirksamen formalen Gestaltungsprinzipien interessiert, z.B. an dem elementar sich durchsetzenden, überwuchernden Symbolbedürfnis der Kranken oder an ihren ornamentalen, iterierenden Ordnungstendenzen. Die unbestreitbare Kunstleistung mancher dieser Kranken hat ihn besonders beeindruckt, und er hat es verstanden, ihre Leistungen durch seine vergleichende Methode dem Leser nahezubringen. show less

This is the earliest of the bks on this subject that I know of (but not the 1st I read). It's worth it for the material on Heinrich Welz alone! In a world supersaturated w/ the work of businessmen like Andy Warhol, it's fantastic to be able to have access to images & ideas from people whose marginality wd ordinarily push them to the garbage-heap-of-humanity-a-go-go.

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