Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment

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Contents

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment

Contents

Author

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00074.001

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14487

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Preface

E. H. Gombrich

Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment

This is an unusual book. The wealth of ideas and the range of documentation it contains would have led other scholars to write a large, heavily footnoted tome. Instead, Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz practiced the utmost economy of means without in the least curbing either the boldness of speculation or the variety of the evidence they wished to present. But then these two authors were at least as unusual as was their joint work. Ernst Kris, born in 1900, was in his early thirties, Otto Kurz, born …

Author

E. H. Gombrich

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.ix-xiv

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00074.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14488

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Foreword

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment

We have subtitled this book “An Experiment,” not in order to limit our responsibility but in order to characterize the intention of this study: we wish to record a series of questions without claiming to offer definitive answers.

Author

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00074.003

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14489

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1. Introduction

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment

The “riddle of the artist,” the mystery surrounding him, and the magic emanating from him, can be viewed from two perspectives. One can investigate the nature of the man capable of creating works of art of the kind that we admire—that is the psychological approach. Or one can ask how such a man, whose works are readily accorded a particular value, is himself evaluated by his contemporaries—the sociological approach.

Author

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.1-12

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00074.004

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14490

Chapter subject tags:Art criticismArtists--BiographyArtists--Social conditionsCreation (Literary, artistic, etc.)History--Sources

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2. The Heroization of the Artist in Biography

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment

The universal interest in everything reported about the childhood and youth of exceptional persons has deep roots in the human mind. This interest is usually accounted for in two ways. One point of view states that childhood events have a decisive impact on the future development of man; hence the attempts to demonstrate the early influence of fate in the lives of the great men of history. The other interprets the earliest available information about the lives of the heroes not as precursors …

Author

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.13-60

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00074.005

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14491

Chapter subject tags:Artists--BiographyLysippus, active 5th century B.C.Giotto, 1266?-1337Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)Artists--Social conditions

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3. The Artist as Magician

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment

The evaluation of the artist’s achievement seems to depend to some extent upon a comparison between the work of art and nature, even though the connection may at times be so remote that it is not consciously perceived. This comparison proceeds from two opposite points of view. One of them can be summed up by the anecdote about Zeuxis. Painting his picture of Helen, he selected the most beautiful feature of five different girls and incorporated each into his portrait. The conception on which …

Author

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.61-90

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00074.006

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14492

Chapter subject tags:Art criticismAestheticsImitation in artArt and mythology

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4. The Special Position of the Artist in Biography

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment

In the preceding chapters we have attempted to find the roots from which several themes in artists’ biographies grew. In this final section we are concerned with a new problem: the special position accorded to the artist by his contemporaries. Here too we shall have to confine ourselves to presenting only a few typical biographical motifs. In view of this restriction, the insight we can gain is of necessity fragmentary and limited. For we shall have to exclude from consideration all that …

Author

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.91-132

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00074.007

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14493

Chapter subject tags:Artists--BiographyArtists--Social conditionsArtists in literatureHistory--SourcesInfluence (Literary, artistic, etc.)

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Bibliography

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment

Bibliography

Author

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00074.008

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14494

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

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Index

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment

Index

Author

Otto Kurz, Ernst Kris

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00074.009

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14495

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