Beyond Reason: Art and Psychosis Works From the Prinzhorn Collection

by Laurent Busine

In the early 1920s the German art historian and psychiatrist, Hans Prinzhorn (1886-1933), amassed a remarkable collection of some 5,000 paintings, drawings, objects, and collages made by patients in European psychiatric institutions. His interest, unique at the time, was to assess the art as creative work, and to use it as a way of studying mental illness. Prinzhorn's Collection attracted the attention of many artists, including Paul Klee and Oskar Schlemmer, but by the 1930s, when the Nazis declared such work "degenerate," the Collection fell into disrepair. Only in recent decades has it been properly restored and made available for a wider public.

This catalog accompanied the first exhibition in Britain to foreground the Prinzhorn Collection as a whole. The works represented in these pages defy simple The range is extraordinary and the art's startling sophistication, inventiveness, and beauty inevitably prompt comparison with such artists as Max Ernst and the Surrealists and with Jean Dubuffet.

Three texts are immensely helpful in providing an understanding of the Collection's Bettina Brand-Claussen deals with the Collection's origins within the changing culture of postwar Europe; Inge Jádi offers a meditation on the ethical, interpretative, and aesthetic questions in presenting the Collection; and Caroline Douglas sets Prinzhorn's endeavor within a broader historical and intellectual context.

Questions surrounding art and madness are endlessly fascinating, no more so than today, as science moves to unlock the mysteries of the mind. The Prinzhorn Collection will do much to inspire continuing debate on the links between creativity, rationality, and illness.

Genres: Art, Art History, Psychology

196 pages, Paperback

First published September 7, 1998

Reviews

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the reproductions really need to be much larger. And it'd be nice if there were more translations of the texts in the artwork, and clear pointers to biographical and contextual information.

[Side Real Press · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have recently been reading copies of the 'Folly Journal' issued by the Folly Fellowship and some of the places they discuss (amazing Wisconsin shell houses built by priests, Nek Chands Rock Garden in Chandigarh) cross into the territory of 'Outsider Art'. Both 'Follies' and 'Outsiders' are nebulous terms (you know it when you see it) but only a few days later in a small town I came across this book.

I remember seeing the show to which it is the catalogue and wonderful it was. All the artworks are reproduced in colour and some of the Prinzhorn artists are among the most famous of the genre such Johann Knopf,Heinrich Anton Muller and August Natterer (Google 'em!). But linger also over Katharina Detzel and her life sized sewn male dummy, August Johann Klose with his odd autobiography written in miniscule text (fully illustrated of course), Heinrich Mebes religious/alchemical drawings, and Jakob Mohr' drawings of bewitching(?) machine emanations. Its all great stuff.

There are a few essays, partly of the art theory kind (though actually quite readable) which I wsnt so keen on. It was interesting to learn that Prinzhorn encouraged certain artists with payments of some kind and that some artists (such as Detzel) had jobs before their 'breakdowns' that seem to link into their creations. This raises questions over 'authenticity'. A 'paid' artist (even if it is in chocolate or art materials) is perhaps not so spontaneous as might be thought, and artists whose work reflect their trades are perhaps not devoid of influence from consensus reality (though equally one argue that a person finds their place that serves them best). So there are no easy answers. Some essays make odd assumptions along the lines of (I paraphrase) "removing a single image from a series negates it as art". Really? Who is to say? You Doctor? You Curator? Or me, consumer?

This confusion within the essays and that some of the images with a lot of text are not translated (we could have at least been given the gist of it) knocks it down a few stars, but...if you are looking to build a reference library of 'this type of thing' I think you'll want a copy.

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The essays are uneven, and, like one of the earlier reviewers, I wish more of the texts embedded in the images had been translated. But the images themselves retain their power, and especially given that there's no full catalog of the Prinzhorn Collection available for purchase, any guide showing selections from the collection is well worth the money.

[Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Art" from the inmates of a german insane asylum circa 1920's. In a better world, there would be hundreds of books like this. In an even better world, there wouldn't be any books like this