The Sources of the Psychology of Art and Its Place among the Disciplines That Study Art and Creativity

Abstract

The goal of this article is to analyze, on the basis of today’s research strategies and the sources that deal with the psychology of Western art during the 20th century, the emerging field of the psychology of art and of its component, the psychology of the creative process, in different national traditions and in various fields of the humanities (aesthetics, the philosophy of art, experimental and general psychology, physiology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, art history). Through comparative analysis, this article reveals how German-speaking countries, France, Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union changed their attitude toward the artist, his creative potential, creative work, the creative process, and other problems of the psychology of art. The author devotes special attention to highlighting the distinctive ideas, theoretical positions, and main categories of the psychology of art in the West and in the great civilizations of the East (India, China, Japan). All of this has acquired exceptional importance in today’s metacivilizational culture, in which, as never before, there is active interaction between the ideas of various Eastern and Western peoples about the psychology of art. Finally, on the basis of a comparative analysis of today’s main national traditions relating to the psychology of art, this article highlights its place, functions, and role in the disciplines that study art.