4. Although sexual orgasm is normally reached, in the final analysis, by means of friction and the sense of touch, sexual arousal in most societies, including our own, is largely mediated by the sense of sight. Art, which ap peals particularly to this sense of sight, may consequently again be expected to be more. sexualized in many respects than certain other forms of creative expression.

5. Autoerotic impulses, as Havelock Ellis (1936) pointed out, frequently are not directly gratified, but drive the individual into some form of restlessness and nonsexual activity; and it is impossible to say what of the finest ele ments in art, in morals, in civilization generally may not really be rooted in autoerotism. Ellis quotes Nietzsche in this connection: "Without a certain overheating of the sexual system, we could not have a Raphael."

6 There may well be as Marcuse (1955) indicates, an inherent trend in the libido itself toward cultural expression, without external repressive modification. Although the Freudian theories of art springing from an economy of energy may well be questioned, as we noted above there may still be truth in the notion that life is basically an energy-expending process and that sex energy is a most important part of and significantly motivating force behind living. If so. such sex energy could both directly and indirectly contribute to artistic creation.

their art will tend to carry pure tones or over tones of sexuality for themselves and their viewers.

8. In some instances, the artist will very de liberately and crisciously employ his art form. for the expression of his sex impulses. Thus, a writer may become sexually aroused by his own fictional scenes; and a painter may get an erection while painting a real or an imagined nude. Also, instead of unconsciously repressing his sex urges and sublimating them in his work, an artist may consciously suppress his unsatisfiable desires and throw himself into diverting artistic activity that helps keep him froin plaguing himself with lustful thoughts.

In many ways there may be i Laat or semidirect influence of human sexuality on the artist and of artistic creation on sexual desire and fulfillment. The concept of what is artistically beautiful most probably set dead entirely on sexual craving but part and perhaps quite a large part, of this concept dos seem to stem from obvious or covert sexual drives

As for the more indirect aspects of sex and art, particularly those involved with the psy choanalytical theories of sex sublimati at these top would appear t have tablity—in spite of the usual orthodox Freudian attempts to overemphasize their importance. In fact, in the case of any given artist, there is no reason why the sexual sources of his er ative work cannot be significantly fourfold. (a He may have conscious ex dires wirth he deliberately fulfills to some extent in lis art-e.g., by painting exciting nudes, sculpting erotic tableaux, etc. (b) He may have unconscious but unrepressed sex urges, which supply him with considerable artistic raw material (such as sensuous images or predilections for sexualized forms that he incorporates into either repre sentational or more abstract art forms.

› He

7. At the buttom of artistic productionjis sensory input and output. The artist almost hun grily draws sensations from his environment; and, albeit in an often abstract and highly intelle :tualized form, he communicates them back to his viewers who, in turn, receive their first impression of the artist's product from their senses. "If man expresses his grasp of the world by his senses," states Erich Fromm (1955, p. 347 "he creates art and ritual, le creates song, dance drama, painting, sculpture." If this is may have conscious sex urges which he conscitrud, then sex and art are two major ways by ously suppresses by absorbing himself in his which man expresses his grasp of the world by art work and which help give this work either a hissesince in addition to its use of the highly sexualized or a studiously asexualized sense of sight, which we emphasized a few tone. d) He may have conscious sex (or ag. agraphs back, kex is indubitably a highlygressive, feelings of which he is quite ashamed, sesualized activity. Artists notably draw upon sensations, and it is quite likely that their seasucusnee will lap over into sexual expressiveAether consciously or unconsciously,

which he then unconsciously represses, and to prevent these repressed impulses from returning to consciousness he may set up compensatory or other neurotic defenses which drive

him to produce works of art and sometimes to produce them in a specifically sexualized

manner.

Only by taking into account several major factors such as those just outlined is it possible for us to account for the full scope of the relationship between sex and art. And when this full scope is accurately perceived, it indeed appears almost universal. For all that-and let this caveat be duly emphasized-art is far from being entirely sexualized in either its origin or its execution. As Herbert Read (1947) correctly indicates, art forms have their basis in the laws and organizations of inorganic as well as of living things, in the processes of biological growth and function as well as in the mathematical and mechanical properties of matter. Art is the representation, science the exploration, of the fundamental structure and processes within and around us.

The Sexual Psychology of Artists

As briefly noted in our discussion of sex sublimation and art, most outstanding artists have hardly been noted for their sexual abstinence or reticence. Craven (1931, 1940) informs us that Titian had at least one mistress; Rembrandt lived in concubinage with Hendrickje Stoeffels; El Greco was a man of many loves; Van Gogh was a constant frequenter of broth els; Gauguin frequented brothels and also lived with a mistress; Modigliani was promiscuous; Matisse had an illegitimate daughter; Picasso lived with various women; Turner was a man of strong sexual impulsions who had four illegitimate children; and so on and so forth. Brodzky (1946) tells us that Jules Pascin, one of the outstanding painters of nudes, was highly promiscuous and that "a loose life ... was as

food for him."

When not reveling in heterosexual activities, some of the most renowned artists, including Leonardo, Cellini, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Blake, are suspected of having had homosexual or at least homoamative relations during a large part of their lives. Although the stereotype of the bohemian artist who lives in a garret and is sexually promiscuous is probably largely false-since many quite talented and great artists marry conventionally at a reasonably

early age and remain sexually faithful to their mates for the rest of their lives-it still can probably be found that renowed artists tend to be less conventional in their approaches to sex and to life than are men of equal genius in other fields (such as engineering or research). Quite possibly, this may partly be because the artist usually is a free lancer, who is not directly dependent on a single employer for his financial security, and that therefore he allows himself more freedom in his sexual behavior. But there may also be something about the artistic temperament itself that finds it undesirable or diffi cult to conform to bourgeois sexual morality.

There is a widespread belief that an unusu ally high proportion of artists and individuals who are interested in art are homosexually inclined. As far as great artists themselves are concerned, this belief does not appear to hold much water, since the great majority seem to have been distinctly heterosexual and some of those who are suspected of being homosexual (such as Leonardo) are placed in this category on only the flimsiest of evidence. In what seems to be the only study of homosexuality and general creativity that has been done to date, a study by the present author (1959), the data clearly showed that the more homosexual an individual is, the less creative-in terms of originality and inventiveness-he tends to be. Dr. Daniel Schneider, a practicing psychoanalyst as well as an authority on art, has also found (1954, p. 300) that "the great homosexual artist is the exception that proves all the rules. The notion of the homosexual's being highly artistically creative is a myth that has largely been fostered by prejudiced observers, such as Edward Carpenter (1914), Havelock Ellis (1936), and John Addington Symonds (1883), who were themselves homosexual or who (as in Ellis' case) were intimately involved by marital or other emotional ties with homosexuals.

There is much more valid evidence that pro. portionately more homosexuals than heterosexually interested individuals are artistically and esthetically inclined in terms of audience participation. Just as females in our society tend to attend the ballet, dramatic productions, and musidal concerts, whereas males frequently are more interested in the more "manly" sports, so

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