Necessary illusion

by Gilbert J. Rose

Necessary Illusion is the last volume of a trilogy aimed at redressing the reductionism inherent in the traditional psychoanalytic "take" on art as being essentially a struggle with illness and self-healing. In contrast, the trilogy views aesthetic form as evolving within a theory of reality and perception. Art is as amenable to promoting progressive adaptation and differentiation as regression and defense. The Power of Form (1980 [1992]) focused on the correspondence between aesthetic form and psychic process, in that each involves an interplay between holistic imagination and realistic thought and perception. Art, like ego, may serve an adaptive function of aiding orientation in an inconstant reality. Trauma and Mastery in Life and Art (1987) concluded with the interaction between art and mind - based on their corresponding structures - as a form of resonance associated with currents of affect. Necessary Illusion draws on both books and explores the emotional resonances to art in the