A CRITICAL READING OF PSYCHOANALYSIS AS AN ART-HISTORICAL METHOD ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE PAINTING IN THE CONSERVATORY BY ÉDOUARD MANE

Abstract

Based on the radical change in the methodology of art history, which was initiated by the emergence of the new art history, the paper presents, examines and employs the psychoanalytical method of Jacques Lacan in the interpretation of Manet’s painting In the Conservatory (1978-79). One of the many potential readings of this puzzling composition offered in the text is constructed around the analysis of the intensive relationship between the observer and the painting through Lacan’s notions of the mirror stage, the eye, the gaze, ideal ego and ego-ideal. The aim of this paper assumes a critical reassessment of psychoanalysis as an instrument in art-historical research by means of elaboration of its methodological achievements as well as its limitations.