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01-09-2007 | Psychological Exploration

Mother, Melancholia, and Art in Erik H. Erikson’s Toys and Reasons

Author: Donald Capps

Published in: Journal of Religion and Health | Issue 3/2007

Abstract

In three earlier articles (2007a, 2007b, 2007c), I focused on the theme of the relationship of melancholia and the mother, and suggested that the melancholic self may experience humor, play, and dreams as restorative resources. In this article, I want to make a similar case, based on Erik H. Erikson’s Toys and Reasons (1977), for art (in this particular case, a painting of the Annunciation). I have made a similar case for the restorative role of art in articles on Leonard da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (Capps, Pastoral Psychology, 53, 107–137, 2004) and James McNeill Whistler’s painting of his mother (Capps, Pastoral Psychology, 2007d). In the present article, however, I focus on the special biographical circumstances in Erikson’s own development of a melancholy self and the painting he discusses in Toys and Reasons, thereby suggesting that individuals may find a particular work of art especially relevant to their own experience of melancholy. I conclude with Erikson’s testimonial at the memorial service of a colleague and friend who translated her own melancholy into her service to others.

In his biography of Erikson, Lawrence J. Friedman (1999) notes that when, much later, Erikson recalled his unsuccessful search for his father, “he sometimes charged that ‘MOTHER DECEIVED’ him. This was an obvious reference to her failure to nurture and sustain him with a sense of himself and his past. At times, he underscored ‘how many discordant signals she must have given me as to my origins!’” (p.39). Friedman also notes that when his mother died in Haifa, Israel, in 1960, Erikson “had never found a way to open up to Karla concerning his sense of disability because he had not come to grips with his paternity. He had not even broached with Karla his memories of how she had seemed to shunt him aside when she met his stepfather” (p. 299).

Erikson misidentifies the painter here as Barbello. He was Belbello da Pavia. Books of Hours, popular in the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance, owe their name to the Hours (or Little Office) of the Virgin Mary, which consisted of a sequence of eight short services to be recited in private at intervals during the day. The eight divisions of the Hours of the Virgin were most frequently introduced by scenes selected from the Christmas story and would end with the Assumption or Coronation of the Virgin. One of the first major Italian Books of Hours was the Visconti Hours, begun around 1388–1395 for GiangaleazzoVisconti, Duke of Milan from 1378–1402, and completed for his second son, Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan from 1412–1447. Belbello contributed to the Visconti Hours in the latter period (Backhouse, 2004; de Hamel, 1997, and Walther and Wolf, 2001).

Backhouse, J. (2004). Illumination from the book of hours. London: The British Library.

Capps, D. (2004). Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa: Iconic center of male melancholic religion. Pastoral Psychology, 53, 107–137.CrossRef

Capps, D. (2007a). Mother, melancholia, and humor in Erik H. Erikson’s earliest writings. Journal of Religion and Health, in press.

Capps, D. (2007b). Mother, melancholia, and play in Erik H. Erikson’s Childhood and society. Journal of Religion and Health, in press.

Capps, D. (2007c). Mother, melancholia, and dreams in Erik H. Erikson’s Insight and Responsibility. Journal of Religion and Health, in press.

Capps, D. (2007d). Whistler’s mother: Devotional center of male melancholic religion. Pastoral Psychology, in press.

de Hamel, C. (1997). A history of illuminated manuscripts. (2nd ed.). London: Phaidon Press Ltd.

Erikson, E. H. (1964). Human strength and the cycle of generations. In E. H. Erikson (Ed.), Insight and responsibility (pp. 109–157). New York: W. W. Norton.

Erikson, E. H. (1975). “Identity crisis” in autobiographic perspective. In E. H. Erikson (Ed.) Life history and the historical moment (pp. 17–47). New York: W. W. Norton.

Erikson, E. H. (1977). Toys and reasons: Stages in the ritualization of experience. New York: W. W. Norton.

Erikson, E. H. (1987a). The ontogeny of ritualization in man (1966). In S. Schlein (Ed.), E. H. Erikson, A way of looking at things: Selected papers from 1930 to 1980 (pp. 575–594). New York: W. W. Norton.

Erikson, E. H. (1987b). Mary Sarvis—a few words of testimony. In S. Schlein (Ed.), E.H. Erikson, A way of looking at things: Selected papers from 1930 to 1980 (pp. 731–732). New York: W. W. Norton.

Freud, S. (1963). Mourning and melancholia. In S. Freud (Ed.), General psychological theory (pp. 164–179). New York: Collier Books.

Friedman, L. J. (1999). Identity’s architect: A biography of Erik H. Erikson. New York: W. W. Norton.

Otto, R. (1958). The idea of the holy. J. W. Harvey (trans.). London: Oxford University Press.

Walther, I. F., & Wolf, N. (2001). The world’s most famous illuminated manuscripts. Koln: Taschen Books.

Title: Mother, Melancholia, and Art in Erik H. Erikson’s Toys and Reasons
Author: Donald Capps
Publication date: 01-09-2007
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Journal of Religion and Health / Issue 3/2007
Print ISSN: 0022-4197
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6571
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-007-9120-7

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Editorial

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Spirituality and Resilience in Trauma Victims

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John Prine’s Images of God and Male Melancholia: Terror, Forgiveness, and the Persistence of Desire