The Secret Artist A Close Reading of Sigmund Freud

"I argue that Freud is fundamentally an artist, but that the artistic expression of his desires and fears is repressed." Beginning with this premise, Lesley Chamberlain sets out to explore the meaning of Freud's life and work through a new lens. Part biography, part literary criticism, The Secret Artist takes the reader into the mind of Freud, toward a better understanding of the thinker, his work, and art itself. Using Freud's own writing on art and the aesthetic theories of thinkers ranging from Nietzsche to Lionel Trilling, Chamberlain examines Freud's art and shows how his imaginative creations have revolutionized not only mental health, but our thinking about art in general, by opening up the individual subconscious as a subject. In elegant, accessible prose she describes how "Freud split the aesthetic atom, releasing a vast energy for individual creativity." Book jacket.

Lesley Chamberlain is a regular contributor to newspapers and journals in the U.K. and the United States, including the Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, and The Los Angeles Times