Hans Bellmer: The Anatomy of Anxiety (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An impressive book by any standards. Every page displays intelligence, erudition and visual acuity."
— Metapsychology

"[Taylor's] tone and method is a long way from the punitive. . . literalism and crudity of much Bellmer criticism."
— R. S. Short, Times Literary Supplement

Product Description

The German-born Surrealist Hans Bellmer (1902-1975), best known for his life-size pubescent dolls, devoted an artistic lifetime to creating sexualized images of the female body--distorted, dismembered, or menaced in sinister scenarios. In this book Sue Taylor draws on psychoanalytic theory to suggest why Bellmer was so driven by erotomania as well as a desire for revenge, suffering, and the safety of the womb. Although he styled himself as the quintessential Oedipal son, an avant-garde artist in perpetual rebellion against a despised father, Taylor contends that his filial attitude was more complex than he could consciously allow. Tracing a repressed homoerotic attachment to his father, castration anxiety, and an unconscious sense of guilt, Taylor proposes that a feminine identification informs all the disquieting aspects of Bellmer's art. Most scholarship to date has focused on Bellmer's work of the 1930s, especially the infamous dolls and the photographs he made of them. Taylor extends her discussion to the sexually explicit prints, drawings, paintings, and photographs he produced throughout the ensuing three decades. The book includes a color frontispiece and 121 black-and-white images (eight published here for the first time), as well as appendixes containing several significant texts by Bellmer previously unavailable in English.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 332 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; 1st edition (December 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262201305
• ISBN-13: 978-0262201308
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,173,108 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Bellmer, Freud, and tiny pictures, May 10, 2002

By	Invisible Library - See all my reviews

If you're interested in Hans Bellmer's art aside from his doll, this is the only book currently in print that has pictures of his drawing, painting, and print work. As an art book, it's pretty mediocre. There are 5 color plates. All the other pictures are reproduced in black and white, no bigger than 3 x 4 inches and often smaller. Picture text includes artist, title, and medium, but does not give original dimensions or indicate if the picture was originally in color. Many of the pictures are reproduced so lightly that, coupled with the small size, it is difficult to see the work at all.

The text, and there is a lot of it, focuses almost entirely on a Freudian examination of Bellmer himself. The art becomes merely an extension of the author's analysis of the artist. The author clings so strongly to this narrow interpretation that all the other facts and influences of Bellmar's life (growing up in Germany during WW1, coming of age during the Weimar Republic, and emigrating after the Nazi's labeled him as degenerate, the influence of the other Surrealists, the death of his first wife, his alcoholism, and so on) are simply mentioned in passing and then neglected as other avenues of explanation. By the end, the theory overwhelms the subject, and one wonders why the author chose to write about Bellmar at all and didn't simply write a general text on Freudian theory as a means of interpreting of art.

The book does have a chronology of Bellmer's life, which is helpful for finding context, and a very thorough bibliography that will point you towards better examples of the art. I added a rating star for including pictures of previously unpublished work.

4.0 out of 5 stars good book on Bellmer!, September 9, 2008

By	Chance A. Dunlap - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Hans Bellmer: The Anatomy of Anxiety (Paperback)

This work is mostly meant for those who want to know more about the psychological and historical context of Bellmer's work. Includes many photographs, but in no way is a conclusive text on the artist. good buy for those sincerely interested in Bellmer.