pavel ivanovich karpov (1873–1932?) – the russian prinzhorn: art of the insane in russia

History of Psychiatry 1 –10

© The Author(s) 2016Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0957154X15624046

hpy.sagepub.com

Pavel Ivanovich Karpov (1873–1932?) – the Russian Prinzhorn: art of the insane in Russia

Vladimir LernerBen-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Grigory PodolskyKfar Shaul Hospital, Israel

Eliezer WitztumBen-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

AbstractThe complicated relationship between the discipline of mental health and the arts has barely been studied systematically. Mental hospitals, shelters and prisons – institutions that accommodate the mentally ill – sometimes promote but often discourage and disrupt the patients’ artistic creativity and the images created. In psychiatric circles, the recognition of patient art was a long, slow and frustrating process. Among the Western psychiatrists who studied the creative activity of the mentally ill, researchers usually mention such names as C. Lombroso, M. Shearing, V. Morgentaller, H. Prinzhorn and others, but rarely refer to their Russian colleagues and contemporaries. Pavel Ivanovich Karpov (1873–1932?), a Russian psychiatrist, was one of the most extensive researchers in the field of the art of the insane, but unfortunately his name is little known among modern psychiatrists. For his clinical and scientific contributions, he deserves to be remembered in the history of psychiatry.

KeywordsArt, creativity, Pavel Ivanovich Karpov, history, mentally ill, psychiatry, Russia

Introduction

The complicated relationship between the highest form of human activity – creativity – and mental illness has interested scholars since the Classical period. Plato called this activity ‘divine madness … a gift from the Gods’, to distinguish it from other kinds of madness such as insanity. According

Corresponding author:E. Witztum, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva Mental Health Center, Be’er Sheva, 84170, PO Box 4600, Israel. Email: [email protected]

624046 HPY0010.1177/0957154X15624046History of PsychiatryLerner et al.research-article2015

Article

at Tel Aviv University on January 15, 2016hpy.sagepub.comDownloaded from

mailto:[email protected]

http://hpy.sagepub.com/

2 History of Psychiatry

to Seneca, Aristotle claimed that ‘No great genius has ever been without some divine madness’, and in the comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare says ‘The lunatic, the lover and the poet, Are of imagination all compact’.

According to some researchers, ‘Ancient views of creativity across different cultures share some common features; for example, creativity was perceived as endlessly producing and renew-ing as well as goodness by both ancient Chinese and Greeks’ (Niu and Sternberg, 2002). However, people in different cultures may still have different social values and attitudes that deeply affect their motivations, attitudes, emotions and thinking.

In the nineteenth century, Lombroso’s theories and assumptions, which compared genius to a pearl, had a significant impact. He believed that madness originated as a constitutional defect, transmitted via heredity in families suffering from mental illness (Maudsley, 1908). Maudsley (1879: 85) argued that neurophysiological changes can be found both in madness and genius. According to the Romantic concept, genius is a state intertwined with madness. Following these views, the mad-genius controversy developed in the nineteenth century, and even today no final resolution has been reached.

The connection between mental health and creativity has traditionally been studied in terms of outstanding aesthetic-professional creativity and mental illness. More interesting, however, is the possible connection between mental health and ‘everyday’ creativity. The latter involves attacking day-to-day activities in a divergent way; it derives from a complex of cognitive, affective, personal, motivational and social factors, and is characterized by openness, flexibility, autonomy, playful-ness, willingness to take risks, and perseverance. These characteristics are also consistently empha-sized in models of ‘normal’ personality growth, so that the possibility of promoting mental health arises by fostering creativity in day-to-day life (Anastasi and Foley, 1941).

For a long time researchers have been fascinated by the possibility of the co-occurrence of out-standing creativity and psychopathological changes within a person. The relationship between creativity and psychopathology is complex, differing among individuals and with the nature of the illness and environmental factors involved.

Early recognition of the art of insane

Following the exploration of the relationship between creativity and madness that took place at the beginning of the twentieth century, a number of European artists became aware of the art of the mentally ill and were influenced by it. For the first time, there were exhibitions of ‘The art of psy-chopathology’, and several publications appeared that were based on private collections and con-tained impressive examples of this art. A ‘hospital art collection’ began to appear in almost all the big European psychiatric hospitals, and so this art was made available to the public. The images originating from the psychiatric hospital began to receive recognition as a visual declaration itself and as a proper form of art (Anastasi and Foley, 1941).

W.A.F. Browne, the First Superintendent of the Crichton Royal Asylum in Dumfries, was another clinician who took an interest in the art of patients, and in 1880 he wrote an article entitled ‘Mad artists’ (Beveridge, 2001). However, Browne was interested in proving his thesis that the art of the mentally disturbed was no different from that of healthy people, and he seems to have selected the more conventional pictures and ignored the stranger creations – more specifically the type of work that would nowadays be called ‘outsider art’. Browne’s emphasis on the essential normality of patients’ art addresses one of the fundamental questions in this area – namely, is there anything distinctive about the work of the mentally ill? For Browne, the answer was ‘no’ (Beveridge, 2001).

The first book to address the art of mental patients from an aesthetic rather than a clinical point of view was Art by the Mad, published in Paris in 1907 by Paul Meunier, a psychiatrist, who wrote



Lerner et al. 3

under the pseudonym Marcel Reja. He saw the art of the insane as primitive in character but, unlike Lombroso, he did not think the work was pathological in itself. Rather, he felt that a study of such work might yield an understanding of artistic creativity in general (Beveridge, 2001).

The term ‘schizophrenic master’ was coined by Prinzhorn (1922/1972), implying that, isolated behind hospital walls, there were anonymous great artists whose works had an unusual quality, and that those works were superior to the mundane paintings lacking inspiration, which were created in the world outside the hospital. Interest in the ‘art of madness’ was not limited to psychiatric circles, and the considerable esteem that it gained was not limited to a small group of enthusiasts. Although only a few works were available to the general public, the mere fact that they were created in the context of insanity stimulated the curiosity of the audience, creating great public interest. The cliché of the mad artist was common then, as it is today.

In the sweeping Romantic movement, the perception of madness and attitudes to the insane underwent a deep and significant change, and many of its derivatives still remain relevant to this day. The madman was transformed from a mindless creature, perceived as an animal without emo-tions, to a hero embodying the Romantic ideal whose art was the purest expression of the Romantic, free imagination. Since the art of the insane as well as the art of children and ‘primitive’ peoples has always been present, one might wonder why we speak about its ‘discovery’. The question is why the art of the mad, which has existed throughout the centuries, had never been discovered before, and why this art, unlike primitive and naive art, suffered from being ‘transparent’ and invis-ible (Douglas, 1996). How is it that, even though this art was rich with content, it was previously perceived as chaotic, and even though it was charged with significance it had been widely consid-ered as meaningless? Why, when it was the product of a frightening intensity of emotions and human needs, had it been treated as banal and meaningless, even up to the point that people refused to treat it as art, and completely ignored it?

Perhaps ‘discovery’ of the art of the mad could only occur at a time when a society was mature enough to accept the images of reality – carried and expressed by mental patients – as a part of human existence. These images provoked a curiously ambivalent response in most peo-ple. The art of the mad, like madness itself, attracts and repels simultaneously. This ambiva-lence is the reason why this art is still marginal, bordering on legitimate art. Despite the visual and emotional power embodied in such art, not even the finest examples of patients’ paintings and sculptures are represented in galleries and museums of the Western world. There is neither a demand nor a market for the works of these artists. This type of art is not systematically included in the curriculum at art schools or in Departments of Art or Art History in universities (Macgregor, 1989).

Relationship between psychiatry and the art of the insane

Another reason for the failure of this art to be fully recognized as a legitimate art form is partly because art historians feel reluctant to analyse and understand it, feeling that this role belongs to the discipline of psychiatry. It is important to note that, although it was artists who discovered the artistic activities of patients, the systematic collection, classification and description of the art of the mad and the resulting images were initiated by doctors who specialized in treating patients suffering from mental illness.

Psychiatry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was an independent profession, a specific medical practice that had received a mandate to deal with the mentally ill. The medics of the time believed that the understanding of expressions of mental illness – which also included art – and the treatment of these patients should be left to experts. Therefore, in that period, psychiatric hospitals specializing in treating the mentally ill were created and expanded, so individuals with strange




ideas and behaviour disappeared from the community. The intensity of the process is well illus-trated by the increasing numbers of hospitalized patients by the end of the nineteenth century. For instance, in 1880 in Germany the number of mentally ill hospitalized in psychiatric institutions was 3496, while only 10 years later, in 1890, the number had risen to 42,669 (a 12.2-fold increase) (Douglas, 1996).

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, doctors began to publish detailed descriptions of patients’ works and made attempts to classify them. Publications were accompanied by a growing number of illustrations from patients’ paintings. Knowledge and distribution of these publications were not limited to medical circles, but the role of the psychiatrist as the interpreter of images of this new type of art was respected, and it affected how this art was perceived by the general public.

Artists, who saw great value in these works and viewed them in their own way were sceptical of psychiatric explanations and commentaries. The number of medical experts on the art of the insane remained limited, since only a few psychiatrists were sufficiently sensitive to the aesthetic value of the works. It should be noted that, although a small number of these insane artists became accepted as famous artists who created masterpieces, this was not due to the efforts of the medical experts (Gavrilov, 2013b).

The complicated relationship between the discipline of medicine and the artistic community has barely been studied. However, it seems that the involvement of both these groups in the art of mad-ness and the visual images arising from it can be understood not only as the result of acceptance of the concept of the mad genius and the background ideology of the Romantic movement; it was also a result of the cooperation and contact between doctors and artists which increased during the nineteenth century (Macgregor, 1989).

Prisons, mental hospitals and shelters – all those institutions housing the mentally ill – some-times promoted, but often disrupted and sabotaged, the patients’ artistic creativity and its images. The history and development of these institutions becomes an integral part of the story developing within their walls. Unfortunately, most of the archives in these institutions have not been pre-served. The Bedlam institution in England became the most famous, the real reason being the fact that Bedlam had a preserved, orderly archive, giving a complete picture of its historical develop-ment and, to some extent, of the work of the artists there. Yet the conditions in Bedlam were no better or worse than at other hospitals of that time. Thus, we may regard Bedlam as a representative example (Macgregor, 1989).

In psychiatric circles the developing recognition of patient art was a long, slow and frustrating process. In the late nineteenth century, French psychiatrists Ambrose Tardieu and Paul-Max Simon both published studies on the similar characteristics of and symbolism in the artwork of the men-tally ill. They viewed art therapy as an effective diagnostic tool to help to identify specific types of mental illness or traumatic events, describing five types of art styles and applying these to five different psychiatric syndromes (Ganim, 1999).

In 1880 the Italian-Jewish psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso published an article on ‘L’arte nei pazzi’, in which he examined the patients’ inner conflicts and highlighted the similarities between psychotic and primitive art. He also highlighted the prominent numerous sexual symbolisms found in patients’ paintings (Lombroso and Du Camp, 1880). In England, in the same year, Winslow (1880) described a collection of drawings assembled by the superintendent of a mental hospital which received patients almost exclusively from the ‘educated classes’. In 1906 the German psy-chiatrist Fritz Mohr published painting tests, which he used as an aid in diagnosis (Gantt, 1992). But without a doubt the greatest advance in patient art studies was the work and approach of Hans Prinzhorn.



Lerner et al. 5

Prinzhorn’s work and views

Hans Prinzhorn (1886–1933) studied art history in Vienna. Later he studied singing in London and finally turned to medicine, specializing in psychiatry. After returning from service in World War I, he began working at the clinic in Heidelberg. The Director, Karl Wilmanns, approached Prinzhorn and asked him to sort and develop a small collection of patients’ paintings held by the institution, which he did.

Subsequently Prinzhorn collected about 5000 images from psychiatric institutions in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands. His studies on this collection led to his book Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (translated as Artistry of the Mentally Ill), which was a groundbreaking work in this field and is still important today (Prinzhorn, 1922/1972). The appearance of the book caused a sensation. He courageously claimed that the drawings of patients are of great aesthetic value and should be treated as art, from every perspective. Even more daring to the readers of the 1920s was the determination by Prinzhorn that there are many parallels and similarities between the patients’ works and the graphic work of modern art that was captivating audiences at the time. He specifically pointed out similarities to the artistic avant-garde works of German expressionism. The book still remains a milestone in the history of psychiatry and aesthetics.

In the foreword to his book, Prinzhorn explained that there are two basic methodological approaches for dealing with the art of the mentally ill. The first is the theoretical one: a catalogue of images organized by language and neutral scientific terminology, accompanying clinical description and psychopathology of the patients. In contrast to this ‘objective approach’, a second exists: the metapsychological approach, one that tries to trace the image-creating process. According to this approach, special and unusual works are explained as psychologically referring to the special conditions in which they were created, arguing that they express a creative urge. This approach is mainly phenomenological and existential, with analysis independent of psychiatry and aesthetics (Prinzhorn, 1922/1972: xvi–xvii).

Prinzhorn emphasized that collecting and describing the material itself has no intellectual value. He tried to offer a middle ground between the two approaches he described, but it is clear that he was more inclined to the second approach. Prinzhorn’s psychological method is derived from three main sources: phenomenology, Gestalt psychology and communication theory of empathetic art. He tries to examine the source of perfection arising from the impulse to create and express, and from barely detectable clues. Each piece is perceived as autonomous, independent and wholly reflecting the imagination of its creator. His method is more synthetic than analytic, and he delib-erately avoids over-explanation and a reductionist attack on the work, that often characterizes the psychological and psychiatric research of art.

The first part of the book presents a theoretical introduction and the psychological elements of the configuration picture. The second part examines pictures of 10 selected schizophrenic artists. Reproductions of the images are accompanied by a number of details about the clinical course and the period of hospitalization of the patients. He deliberately avoids any psychoanalytic commentar-ies and interpretations. The third part is devoted to discussion and summary, which is still impor-tant and relevant (Prinzhorn, 1972).

Prinzhorn’s approach was psychiatrically influenced by the works of the renowned Swiss psy-chiatrist Eugen Bleuler (1857–1936), who coined the term ‘schizophrenia’ (Bleuler, 1911/1950) instead of the deterministic and pessimistic term ‘youth dementia’ or ‘dementia praecox’ created by Kraepelin. Bleuler tried to organize the findings and to rethink the process of schizophrenia by sepa-rating what he saw as primary processes and secondary processes. He emphasized the essential role of the impaired thought processes and the emotional disorder in the pathology of schizophrenia.




Prinzhorn tried to address the findings and insights of Bleuler, and to use them in understanding patient creations. He found them more relevant and valuable than the psychoanalytic theory of motivation and symbolism. It should be noted that some artists, including some of those appearing in Prinzhorn’s book, were killed by the Nazis during the German occupation of Europe (such as the schizophrenic blacksmith Paul).1

The art of the insane in Russia and in the early Soviet era

Among the Western psychiatrists who studied the creative activity of the mentally ill, researchers usually mention such names as C. Lombroso, M. Shearing, V. Morgentaller, H. Prinzhorn and others, but rarely refer to their Russian colleagues and contemporaries.

Pavel Ivanovich Karpov (Figure 1) was responsible for the most extensive Russian research in the field of the art of the insane of his period. Karpov’s biography is vague. He was born in 1873, in Moscow or St Petersburg. Nothing is known about his parents – different documents mention either that they were farmers or non-Party workers or weavers – or about his childhood and adoles-cence. His personal file notes that he was arrested once by the Tsar’s security forces in 1902 for ‘keeping literature’. Only a few facts are known about Karpov’s private life: he was married to Elena Nikolaevna Karpova and dedicated to her his ‘modest work’ of 1926 (see below), describing her as a ‘steadfast companion on the thorny paths of our life’ (Galtsova, 2011; Gavrilov, 2013b).

In 1911, when he was 38 years old, Karpov graduated from the medical school of the First Moscow State University. In the same year he defended his PhD thesis entitled ‘The evolution of psychological life’. From 1911 Karpov started working in a psychiatric hospital affiliated to the First Moscow State University, successively as resident, senior resident and finally, in 1917, as senior psychiatrist. During 1915–26 he taught a course on neurological and psychological diseases in the nursing school and during 1917–20 he worked as an assistant in the neurological clinic of Professor L.O. Darkshevich (1858–1925). In 1920 he was chosen to be the director’s assistant and appointed professor in the Institute of Psycho-neurology, where he was responsible for the propaedeutics division and taught a compulsory course ‘Introduction to psychiatry’ (Galtsova,

2011; Gavrilov, 2013b). Other information about his professional activity is very sketchy and confusing because the organizations where Karpov worked during the period of 1920–30 were constantly reformed, merged or disbanded, and their names were frequently changed.

From 1911 Karpov started to collect the work of the mentally ill, including poetry, prose, draw-ings and paintings, hoping to create a museum based on the collection. His interest in the creativity of the mentally ill gained its theoretical justification in the 1920s. From 1923 to 1932, he was an active member of the State Academy of Arts (GAKhN) (later the National Academy of Arts). Karpov was the chairman of a commission to study pathological creativity and was scientific sec-retary for the psychology of art. From 1926 he was member of the board of the Institute for the Study of Crime and the Criminal, and also Head of the Laboratory for the Study of the Behaviour of the Masses.

Figure 1. Karpov’s portrait by an unknown artist (from the collection of Professor V. Lerner’s father).



Lerner et al. 7

Karpov was interested in the artistic life of the country, and in 1925, while working at the GAKhN, he prepared scientific reports on the works of such artists as M.A Vrubel (1856–1910), M.K Churlionis (1875–1911) and K.S Malevich (1879–1935) as well as the symbolists and futur-ists (Galtsova, 2011; Gavrilov, 2013b). Summarizing the results of his research over 15 years, Karpov published his work with the title Tvorchestvo Dushevnobol’nikh i ego Vliyanie na Razvitie Nauki, i Tekhniki (Creativity of the Mentally Ill and its Influence on the Development of Science, the Art and Technology) (Karpov, 1926), for which he won the publisher’s prize. The reference list includes 10 works of foreign authors (especially M. Reja, 1918), indicating that he was well aware of similar studies in the West. Prinzhorn is also mentioned in the bibliography (see below).

Karpov studied questions of creativity from the point of view of the Freudian school, preparing reports such as ‘On the inspiring effect of words’ and ‘Creativity of M. Churlionis and M. Vrubel’. He planned to publish ‘Digest of the pathology of creativity’. However, he only published an illus-trated book on ‘Creativity of Prisoners’ (Karpov, 1929). Activities of the research commission on the creativity of the mentally ill (later renamed as the ‘commission for studying psychopathological creativity’) were interrupted by the ending of the Academy of Arts’ work in April 1931 (Gavrilov, 2013b). Further traces of Karpov have been lost, and neither domestic nor foreign researchers can determine the fate of this talented researcher or of his art collection (Galtsova, 2011).

Among Karpov’s works in which he dealt with theoretical generalizations in verbal and visual art were his 1926 book, and two other books: ‘Everyday Emotional Creativity in Old Russian Art’ (1928) and ‘Creativity of Prisoners’ (1929) mentioned above. He also wrote articles during the 1920s, including ‘The relationship of brain centre to oratory skills’, ‘Analytical and synthetic crea-tivity’, ‘Genius and paranoid creativeness’, ‘Ancient Russian art’, ‘Principles of futuristic ceativity’ and ‘Fantasy in paintings’ (but only abstracts remain in the bulletins and archives of GAKhN).

Karpov’s 1926 book mentions Prinzhorn in its bibliography, and his theoretical viewpoint is clearly based on the ‘Gestaltung’ theory, but he did not name it directly. Although from the point of view of theory there is an interesting connection between Karpov and the works of Prinzhorn, it is not suggested that Prinzhorn impacted on Karpov the collector, because the Russian psychiatrist started collecting patient art from the beginning of his clinical practice, that is, long before Prinzhorn started doing the same (Galtsova, 2011).

Karpov’s book ‘Creativity of the Mentally Ill’ (1926) has much artistic value, as the reproduced drawings and texts of patients are the only remaining trace of Karpov’s collection. It is also of great interest theoretically, in the context of Soviet humanities and culture in the 1920s. In particular, his positive assessment of the patient art phenomenon is important, and he writes, ‘Doctors began to look at this phenomenon as an art, and, in addition, it was noted that such an occupation often distracted the patient from his ideas and served as a means of calming’ (Karpov, 1926: 5).

Karpov sees no real difference between the art of normal and of insane people, declaring: ‘The insane create according to the same laws as healthy people, and therefore monitoring the creative process at the patient’s bedside and observation of the creator himself and his inherent creativity, can contribute to the illumination of the dark depths of the creative process in general’ (p. 6). Moreover, the attending physician in such a case should also be an art psychologist: ‘Creativity of madmen … provides an opportunity for the treating doctor to observe the patient in these moments and to enter in a more intimate spiritual relationship with him, that helps to penetrate deeply into the depths of the mental mechanism of the creative process’ (p. 6). Moreover, the ‘border between health and mental disorder is difficult to grasp and absolutely impossible to formulate precisely’ (p. 14).

Following Lombroso (who wrote about the art of the insane and was himself a collector of their work), Karpov considered mental pathology as the inevitable cost of genius. ‘Under the influence of some internal reasons, patients with certain forms of mental illness may fall into a special state characteristic of intuitive experience, which results in revealing the creative process’ (Karpov,




1926: 8). Thus, illness creates and facilitates in the individual ‘the most significant communication between waking consciousness and the subconscious’ (p. 9).

Karpov’s ‘Creativity of the Mentally Ill’ is perhaps the most extensive Russian work in this field. After indicating the scientific significance and social value of such research, Karpov states that insane artists can possess much greater talent than normal persons: the normal can only appreciate, praise and admire the great works of the abnormal. Karpov emphasizes the diagnostic value of such creative activity, and discusses the attributes which characterize such activity in the various clinical syndromes. He repeatedly mentions his own collection of artistic and literary productions of the mentally ill. Karpov concludes with a hypothetical and mentalistic discussion of the creative process, using such concepts as ‘the tonus of the psychic spheres’ and ‘synthesis in the sub-conscious’.

Fragments and illustrations from this book were reproduced for the first time almost 90 years after it was published by Gavrilov (2013a). Besides analysing the peculiarities of patients’ creativ-ity in those suffering from five different mental diseases (dementia praecox, progressive paralysis, paranoia, epilepsy and circular psychosis), Gavrilov shares Karpov’s original assumptions about the intuitive creative process (Gavrilov, 2013a).

In 1927 another important book on this theme, written by Professor P.M. Zinov’ev (1882–1965), was published on ‘Mental Illness in Paintings and Images: Psychoses, their Essence and Manifestations’ (Zinov’ev, 1927/2007). The emphasis of the book was clearly different in that it focused on patients’ art as a mirror of their psychopathology.

The Swiss-Russian psychiatrist Iohanan Baruch Galant (1893–1978) differed from Karpov, refusing to recognize the ability of the mentally ill to create art of quality. In Galant’s opinion the art of the mentally ill was of no creative interest. In his articles, he expresses appreciation only for the genius of famous artists and writers with mental disturbances, who were the subjects of his own research, including Maxim Gorky (1868–1936), Leonid Andreyev (1871–1919) and Sergey Yesenin (1895–1925) (Galant, 1925, 1926, 1927).

Prinzhorn and Karpov were sincerely passionate about the visual art created by the mentally ill. Psychiatric research on this phenomenon led the German and Russian physicians to form a new professional field of activity. Prinzhorn, like Karpov, regarded the art of the mentally ill as an alter-native mode of creative thinking. Both psychiatrists almost simultaneously began to investigate this. After researching the art of the insane, in 1922 Prinzhorn moved on to study the art of prison-ers (Prinzhorn, 1926); Karpov also published his own research on the mentally ill and then on prisoners in the same sequence: in 1926 and 1929. We assume that they were working indepen-dently but in parallel, maybe as part of the Zeitgeist that existed in Europe at the time, and that similar areas were of interest to scholars and artists in different places at the same time. They gave their personal interpretations of the same phenomena and serendipitously arrived at similar conclu-sions (Gavrilov, 2013b).

The two Karpov monographs are very different. ‘Creativity of Prisoners’ (1929) is not such a deeply thoughtful methodological exposition, but rather a vague and fragmented work, full of Bolshevik ideological pathos (e.g. how wonderful life is in a USSR prison). It is possible that the author’s work on prisoners related only to cases provided to him by the authorities. Without doubt this book was censored, and it does not read like an innovative, ground-breaking, scientific work (Gavrilov, 2013b).

From the early 1930s, GAKhN was accused of being ‘non-Soviet’ and in disagreement with Marxist ideology. The charges against GAKhN were stereotyped: ‘worship of bourgeois science’, ‘Freudianism’, ‘eugenics’, ‘religion’, ‘decadence’ and ‘bad political judgement’. GAKhN was closed by legislative decree in 1930. After 1932, Karpov cannot be traced (Galtsova, 2011; Gavrilov, 2013a, 2013b).



Lerner et al. 9

It is now much clearer how the research activity of Karpov correlates with the advanced researches of scientists in Europe, especially with the works of Prinzhorn, the recognized authority in the field. The important contributions of both scholars – the eminent Prinzhorn and the little-known Karpov – enriched practical psychiatry and the understanding of psychopathology, and no doubt catalysed interest in the amazing creative work of the mentally ill and other marginalized artists. Karpov’s work attracted readers for its innovative approach to original art, which is now labelled ‘Art brut’.

Karpov (1926: 89) hinted at the possibility of the concurrent analysis of creativity, genius and mental illness:

We do not consciously draw a parallel between museum artwork and creativity of schizophrenics, but the reader feels the need to sort out illness symptoms in painting, which he observes in real life, and to compare it with the work of this group of patients. As suggestive material please keep in mind the symbolists and abstractionists.

He gives many illustrations of artistic creativity in his chapter on epilepsy, which includes a large number of vignettes from Dostoevsky. Examples of cyclothymia are presented in the crea-tivity of Chiurlionis, Vrubel, Gogol, Pushkin, Lermontov, Balzac, Dumas, and in Watt’s inven-tions (Galtsova, 2011).

The value of Karpov’s work lies in the fact that it was the first Russian attempt at a systematic identification of various types of creative work by those being treated in psychiatric hospitals. Karpov was a pioneer in his presumption that, in the creative process, there is no difference between mentally ill and healthy individuals. ‘Mentally ill people were and will be reformers in all areas of human life, so the study of their creativity can provide new information towards an understanding of the dark side of the creative process’ (Karpov, 1926: 34).

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Note

1. There is a bitter irony here. After K. Wilmanns, who initiated the collection of the patients’ art, was sacked from his post as clinic director for insulting Hitler, he was replaced by Nazi psychiatrist Karl Schneider, who was responsible for the extermination of the mentally ill. Schneider used the patients’ works to show similarity between them and modern art, in order to prove that modern art is degenerative and psychotic.

References

Anastasi A and Foley JP (1941) A survey of the literature on artistic behavior in the abnormal: I. Journal of General Psychology 25: 111–142.

Beveridge A (2001) A disquieting feeling of strangeness? The art of the mentally ill. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 94: 595–599.

Bleuler E (1950) Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias. New York: International University Press (translation of the original, published in German in 1911).

Douglas C (1996) Precious and splendid fossils. In: Busine L, Brand-Claussen B and Douglas C (eds) Beyond Reason: Art and Psychosis: Works from the Prinzhorn Collection. London: Hayward Gallery, 35–47.

Galant IB (1925) Delirii Maksima Gorkogo (o dushevnoi bolezni, kotoroi stradal Maksim Gorkii v 1889–1990gg [Maxim Gorkii’s delirium (about Maxim Gorkii’s mental illness in 1889–1990)]. The Clinical Archive of Genius and Talents (Europathology), Sverdlovsk 1: 47–55.




Galant IB (1926) O dushevnoi bolezni Esenina [Esenin’s mental illness]. The Clinical Archive of Genius and Talents (Europathology), Sverdlovsk 2: 115–132.

Galant IB (1927) Psikhopatologicheskii obraz Leonida Andreyeva [Leonid Andeyev’s psychopathological image]. The Clinical Archive of Genius and Talents (Europathology), Sverdlovsk 3: 147–166.

Galtsova ED (2011) Kniga P.I.Karpova ‘Tvorchestvo dushevnobol’nikh i ego vliyanie na razvitie nauki, iskusstva i tekhniki’ (1926) v evropeiskom kulturnom kontekste. Materiali k issledovaniu [‘Creativity of mentally ills and its influence on development of science, art and technology’ (1926) in European cultural context. Material for research]. Novie Gumanitarnie Rossiiskie issledovaniya at: http://www.nrgumis.ru/articles/archives/full_art.php?aid=307&binn_rubrik_pl_articles=42 (accessed 2 December 2015).

Ganim B (1999) Art and Healing: Using Expressive Art to Heal your Body, Mind, and Spirit. New York: Three Rivers Press.

Gantt L (1992) A description and history of art therapy assessment research. In: Wadeson H (ed.) A Guide to Conducting Art Therapy Research. Mundelein, IL: The American Art Therapy Association, 119–139.

Gavrilov VV (2013a) Kollegi: Znamenitiy Printshorn i maloizvestniy Karpov [Colleagues: The famous Prinzhorn and unknown Karpov]. In: The Art of Naive Painters in a Context of Domestic and Worldwide Art Culture. Moscow: NITs “Akademika”, 78–88.

Gavrilov VV (2013b) Pavel Ivanovich Karpov – neutomimiy issledovatel’ tvorchestva dushevnobol’nikh i ego vremya [Pavel Ivanovich Karpov – a tireless researcher of the creativity of the mentally ill and his time]. Medical Psychology in Russia at: http://www.mprj.ru/archiv_global/2013_1_18/nomer/nomer16.php (accessed 2 December 2015).

Karpov PI (1926) Tvorchestvo Dushevnobol’nikh i ego Vliyanie na Razvitie Nauki, i Tekhniki [Creativity of the Mentally Ill and its Influence on Development of Science, Art and Technology]. Moscow; Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo “Glavnauka”.

Karpov PI (1928) Bitovoe Emotsional’noe Tvorchestvo v Drevnerusskom Iskusstve [Everyday Emotional Creativity in Old Russian Art]. Moscow: Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskyi Muzei.

Karpov PI (1929) Tvorchestvo Zaklyuchennikh. (Risunki, Skulptura i raboti masterskikh) [Creativity of Prisoners. (Drawings, sculpture and works of workshops)]. Moscow: Izdatelstvo Komissariata Vnutrennikh Del.

Lombroso C and Du Camp M (1880) L’arte nei pazzi. Archivio di Psichiatria, Antropologia Criminale e Scienze Panali 1: 424–437.

Lombroso C (1925) The Man of Genius. London: Walter Scott.Macgregor JM (1989) The Discovery of the Art of the Insane. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Maudsley H (1879) The Pathology of Mind. London: Macmillan.Maudsley H (1908) Heredity, Variation and Genius. London: Bale & Daniellson.Niu W and Sternberg R (2002) Contemporary studies on the concept of creativity: the East and the West.

Journal of Creative Behavior 36: 269–288.Prinzhorn H (1926) Bildnerei der Gefangenen. Berlin: Juncker.Prinzhorn H (1972) Artistry of the Mentally Ill: A Contribution to the Psychology and Psychopathology of

Configuration, translated by E. v. Brockdorff from Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (2nd German edn, 1922). New York: Springer-Verlag.

Winslow LF (1880) Mad artists. Journal of Psychological Medicine N.S. 6: 33–75.Zinov’ev PM (1927, 2007) Dushevhie Bolezni v Kartinkakh i Obrazakh. Psykhozi, ikh Sushchnost’ i Formi

Proyavleniya [Mental Illness in Paintings and Images. Psychoses, their Essence and Manifestations]. Moscow: MedPress-Inform.


http://www.nrgumis.ru/articles/archives/full_art.php?aid=307&binn_rubrik_pl_articles=42

http://www.nrgumis.ru/articles/archives/full_art.php?aid=307&binn_rubrik_pl_articles=42

http://www.mprj.ru/archiv_global/2013_1_18/nomer/nomer16.php


pavel ivanovich karpov (1873–1932?) – the russian prinzhorn: art of the insane in russia

Documents