Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic Interpretation of the Work of Art

This article focuses on Sigmund Freud's attitudes concerning the nature of an artwork. First, special attention is given to the interaction between S. Freud and his predecessor A. Schopenhauer, who generated the idea of philosophy of art by highlighting the importance of the unconscious and irrationality. By following the principals of comparative analysis the author reveals that S. Freud explained the essence of an artwork to be a symbolic expression of unconscious sexual insticts and irrational springs. So, Freud's explanation essentially follows the tendencies of biologization and patalogization expressed by the Jena Romantics, A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche.