A painting is a visual representation of not only the artist’s external experience, but it is also a reflection of the artist’s inner thoughts as well. Thus the science of psychology can help us understand what the artist may be communicating through there work.Here are some of my thoughts in a psychological interpretation of Surgery.
- Is it to be expected that elementary school-age developmentally-speaking girls, go through a "mean" stage? Is bullying a reflection of in-group and/or out-group attributions?
- Innocent play leads to destructive outlets -- expressions of our internal instincts? Freudian?
- Extending the Freudian interpretation, are these young girls experiencing dissociation—angst over their own bodies, or more so, the formation of identity (Oh at such a young age) lending to their lack of emotions. Psychologically relieving their anxiety through acts without emotions - a defense mechanism of displacement? (Schutz is one hundred percent present (in her paintings), asserting the conditions of anxiety - extremes of abandonment, loathing of various kinds, and dismemberment - as if they were displays in a theme park (Free Times, 2006). Is their emotional void a defense mechanism towards their primitive actions?
- Sticking with a developmental stage theory perspective, Erikson’s industry stage comes to mind. Through their actions (of surgery -- cutting up and then sewing back up), are they avoiding an individual sense of inferiority?
- From the social psychology literature, could group conformity lead to sense of being anonymous. Though one sees differences between the girls (e.g., ethnicity and religion), there is something very similar in look between them—leading to sense of being anonymous, and as such, destructive acts.
- Assumption here is that the mean-ness lies within the individual, there is no context generating the behaviors.
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