A Critical Approach to Mary Matthews Gedo’s Psycho-iconographic Method through the Texts on Picasso

Abstract

This article proposes a critical review of Mary Matthews Gedo’s Psychoiconographic method through her confrontation with authors such as Rosalind Krauss, Hal Foster, Jean Sutherland and Georges Didi-Huberman regarding the uses of psychoanalytical theory in art history and criticism. This critical analysis will allow us to differentiate some uses of psychoanalysis that derive in psycho-iconography from other uses derived from the reception of Lacanian psychoanalysis in the context of American art criticism by authors linked to the journal October such as Krauss and Foster. Despite some methodological successes, such as the use of psychoanalytical concepts in the analysis of images from an oneiric elaboration process, the critical approach will focus on two specific aspects: the excessive importance given to children’s traumatic experiences in Picasso’s artistic production in paintings such as Guernica, and the excessive “interpretive furor” of the artist’s private life in works such as La Vie or Old Guitarist.