eMJA: Gregory, Art brut

Book Review

Art brut

The Cunningham Dax Collection: selected works of psychiatric art. Eric Cunningham Dax. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press 1998 (102 pp., $24.95). ISBN: 0 522 84768 4.

For about half a century, the eminent Australian-based psychiatrist Eric Cunningham Dax AO has nurtured a collection of upward of nine thousand items of psychiatric art -- paintings, statues and embroideries executed by patients in the course of their treatment. The collection, currently housed in Melbourne, is one of only a handful in the world that classify items according to the patient's diagnosis for teaching, treatment and research purposes. Thanks to the sponsorship of the Gordon Darling Foundation, part of the collection is now accessible at all times and in all places via an inexpensive softcover volume of colour photographs of about 100 selected works, with succinct expert commentary and interpretation by Dax.

Image from book A man feeling he is in hell tries to save himself by grasping at the roots of a tree, which he fails to reach. The artist killed himself a short time later.

The three cardinal signs of a maniacal illness are elation, overactivity and a flight of ideas. This picture is unusual because a person who is acutely disturbed in this way rarely has the time or patience to complete a work. Here there are bright colours, many related ideas and symbols, an explosive jack-in-the-box and great activity.

Ann Gregory
Assistant Editor, MJA

The Medical Journal of Australia eMJA

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