Koch, Charlotte (2024) Hysteric: Women’s Histories and the Psychoanalytic Aesthetic from Charcot to Rego. Masters thesis, Concordia University.
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Abstract
Paula Rego (b. 1935) is a Portuguese-British artist whose work has been significantly informed by histories of feminism. Her responsive and reactive work often takes direct inspiration from historic events. In her 2004 series of pastels titled Possession I-VII, Rego adapts photographs commissioned by Jean-Martin Charcot of patients at the Salpêtrière Hospital, positioning her model, Lila Nunes, on an analytic couch. In doing so, Rego utilises the aesthetics and history of psychoanalysis in a careful re-adaptation, allowing us to reconsider what it is to depict a subject in this way. This thesis examines the Charcot photographs, as well as the depictions of Dora by Hélène Cixous and Sigmund Freud as means to trace the development and the changing perceptions of “the hysteric” or“madwoman”. By considering the history of this figure, her representations, and the ways she has been treated through the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, I aim to shed new light on how this history effects the way we think about women’s pain, agency, emotions, subjectivity, sexuality, and ways in which they take up space in our own contemporary society.
| Divisions: | Concordia University > Faculty of Fine Arts > Art History |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
| Authors: | Koch, Charlotte |
| Institution: | Concordia University |
| Degree Name: | M.A. |
| Program: | Art History |
| Date: | 25 March 2024 |
| Thesis Supervisor(s): | Potvin, John |
| Keywords: | Psychoanalysis, Hysteria, Embodiment, Art Historiography, Authorship, Second-Wave Feminism. |
| ID Code: | 993573 |
| Deposited By: | Charlotte Koch |
| Deposited On: | 04 Jun 2024 14:09 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Jun 2024 14:09 |
References:
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