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A pioneering work?

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jojojojoanne | 23:01 Mon 10th Dec 2007 | Religion & Spirituality
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Does anyone know why J MacGregors' dissertation: 'The Discovery of the art of the Insane' (Princeton Uni Press 1992) although finished in 1978 was not published until over a decade later? Why it is now out of print?/and why does the work has an unavailable edition?
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Maybe you should ask in Arts & Literature.

Perhaps in the art sector it may be considered pioneering. 'Gosh! someone who didn't go to art school and is a loony can paint' is not really ground-breaking. To espouse about the ability of people with psychiatric disorders was just a societal drift towards accepting that 'mental' disorders existed and some of these people - who were incidentally "untrained in the arts" could actuallly create great art. I'm not sure it is altogether that revealing. Plato noted that many years before. Surrealism is pretty much seen as the work of a nutter or someone heavily influenced by the psyche (Dali for instance)

In an emerging environment, would it not be similar to someone producing a paper that promotes the ability of elephants and chimpanzees to create works of unique art through the medium of their natural wild abilities?

Maybe I am just a cynic, but anyone and everyone can produce some form of art, whether it is great or not seems to depend on fame, the title of the piece, the sensational, the popularity, the outlandishness of the work and gullibility of the viewing audience.
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my question is more suited to arts and lit, though was wondering did you mean through the animal example that the emerging envionment tends to 'animalise' mental illness?

Perhaps art and mental illness (as a cross study) taken from a radical perspective can be seen as creativity and sometimes as the closest thing to true expression in its purest form so therefore 'discovery of the art of the insane' could be looked at as a copy of 'true art' which would probably be interesting in looking at art from an analytical perspective and also be of some interest from a psychological perspective too.
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surrealist art from a psychoanalytical perspective.

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