knowing how many thousands of highly talented individ al never became fine artists precisely be ause they w 're so disturbed that they never actually produced any works of note. (d Severely disturbed individuals, who have no creative talents themselves, frequently become interested in art because they are interested in being "cultured" or "superior" persons, and thereby winning a derivative kind of social approval.

What little clinical evidence is available tends to indicate that the mure severely disturbed an individual is, the less he tends to, actualize whatever artistic potential he may possess A. Ellis, 1959). Moreover since great art almost invariably involves a considerable amount of mental integration, concentrated drive, and persistent work on the part of the artist, it may seriously be doubted if must outstanding artists were severely neurotic or psy chotic when they were at the height of their productivity. The Freudian and Rankïan hypotheses that the artist "works through" his disturbances in his artistic creations, and helps therapize himself thereby, may have some validity. But it may just as logically be hypothe sized that the truly great artist is somewhat less disturbed in most instances than the lesser artist and that that is why his potential talent is more likely to be effectively actualized. It may also be hypothesized that in the case of the inordinately talented artist his genius is so outstanding that, neurotic or not, he finally produces outstanding works and that in understanding him, we might better focus on his genius than on his reasonably irrelevant emotional aberra-

tions.

A Multifactor Theory of Art and Sex

The main objection to the Freudian theory of art and sexuality is not that it is entirely mistaken, and certainly not that it adds nothing to our understanding of the creative and the sexual processes, but that it is at the same time too restricted and overgeneralized. In attempting to account for the "deeper" and more complex aspects of the influence of human sex drives on artistic production, it undervalues some of the simpler and more significant factors

involved in sex and art. A wider ranging and more objective theory of the place of sexuality in art would include some of the following

factors

It should first be noted that man appears to be essentially and inherently a creative animal. Even when he is not particularly intelligent or educated, he tends to restructure his environ ment in terms not only of utility but also of esthetics. The more intelligent and culturally educated he is, the more artistic, in terms of both productivity and audience participation, he tends to be. Art, therefore, may be conceived as a normal aspect of human living; and the question may well be asked, “Why does a human being not use his creative potential in some way?" rather than "What makes this or that individual artistic?" To be human, and especially to be a highly intelligent human being. to some degree means that one will tend to be inventive, problem-solving, and artistically creative. The mystery, if there is a mystery about esthetic productiveness, is why so few individuals in our society actually do invent and create. And one of the fairly obvious answers to this mystery is that we raise our people to be so nauseatingly approval-seeking and terrified of failure that most of them do not dare take the risk of committing their creative potential to actual artistic production.

The second point to be noted in trying to arrive at a wide-ranging theory of art and sex is that art is essentially a form of work and that no artist produces anything who does not, at some point in the game, push himself into action. Arts such as drawing, painting, and particularly sculpture require physical effort along with mental exertion; and unless the artist is willing, quite consistently, to buckle down to the neces sary tasks and chore involved in his activity (including the often boring tasks of mixing paints, stretching canvases, etc.', he simply is not going to accomplish anything in his chosen field. Fortunately, however, all animals to some extent like to move, to act, to work, and the artist normally becomes thoroughly absorbed, in a pleasant way, in his activities once he manages to overcome his initial inertia and to get these activities under way. Because he learns, by experience, that it is pleasurable to

work in an absorbed, intense manner, he has an incentive to keep going back to his artistic activity, even when he is not too unhappy in a more restful state.

If, as just posited, the creative urge is innate in most men, and if art is a form of activity, which itself is also a normal part of human living, it is not difficult to see that there must inevitably be some connection between sex and art. For the human sex drives are certainly to some degree inborn and intrinsic and they are one of the most highly motivating forces (from both an innate and socially learned standpoint) in driving men and women to intense and sustained activity. To accept this fact does not mean that we have to go the whole Freudian or Jungian way and identify life itself as an essentially libidinous or erotic force. Activity-impulsion is probably the most generalized form of aliveness; and sex-impulsion is merely one, albeit a major, form of activitization. But it is hard to conceive of living, behaving, or activity-impulsion without any measure of sexuality-especially since, in the human species, reproduction of the race is entirely dependent on sexual processes.

The argument then logically proceeds: If, art depends on inborn (as well as culturally acquired) activity-impulsions, and if human behaving and reproducing to some degree depend on inborn (as well as environmentally learned) sexual-impulsions, it would indeed be odd if there were no reasonably direct relationships between art and sex. Or, to state the matter a little differently, under these circumstances it would be remarkable if the main or only influence of sex drives on artistic creativity was, as the Freudians state or imply, the result of such highly indirect factors as sexual sublimation, repression, defenses against anxiety and hostility, reaction formation, and various other kinds of psychic circumlocutions. As Harry B. Lee, himself a psychoanalyst but one who takes a somewhat non-Freudian view of sex and art, has rather poetically stated (1953, p. 283): "Creation and recreation are inventive activities born of spiritual necessity, and they are something more than chance iridescences upon the surface of a daydream."

If we turn from Freudian hypotheses and give a little thought to the possibility of direct

influences of human sexuality on artistic production, we may soon come up with the following hypotheses:

1. Sexual desire is a highly activating and motivating force behind many pursuits. It spurs people to achieve fame and fortune, in many instances, in order that they may be more attractive to members of the other sex, and it is quite likely that art is one of the main fields in which this sexually impelled fame and fortune is sought.

2. Sexual urges frequently encourage individuals to enter certain professions-as when the physician studies medicine in order that he may be able to undress women or the actor' enters the theatrical field because of the attractive women he may encounter there. Certainly, therefore, some artists must be drawn to their work because of their interest in nude models or (as we noted previously in this article) their sensuous pleasure in depicting the nude form. It has been hypothesized by Rhoda Winter Russell (personal communication) that many painters have highly enjoyable, positive experi ences with members of the other sex; and that in their artistic productions they not only create the sexualized forms of the persons with whom they have had pleasant contact but also recreate the sex pleasures they have had with these individuals. This hypothesis, that direct sex gratification may lead to an urge to recreate images of itself, seems to make good sense and would partially help to explain why many artists are drawn to depict nudes or other sexualized representations in their work-and why some of them may even be drawn to art itself as an enjoyable form of life activity.

3. Karl Groos (as quoted by Forel, 1922), notes that since the object of art is to excite the sensibilities, it is obvious that it will utilize the domain that is richest in emotional sensationsthe sexual domain. Drawing, painting, and sculpture in particular are forms of art which require that the sentiments of the observer be attracted and heightened almost instantaneously, whereas certain other art forms (such as literature) must ultimately, but not immediately, strike an emotional cord in the members of the artist's audience. It is therefore to be expected that the graphic and sculptural arts will make particular use of sexual themes.

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