By changing the way human beings understand the mind, Sigmund Freud allowed for great advances in art -- most specifically, painting and literature.

In literature, D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers provides an excellent example of the great impact of Freud’s studies. Sons and Lovers is an epic novel that deals with one woman, Mrs. Morel, and her relationship with her three sons. She is quite intimate with her first son, William, up until his death. However, at that point she turns to her younger son, Paul, and her loss forces her to become even more attached to him. Indeed, the two are so intimate that they appear to have a stronger relationship than that of a mother and son. The strength of this relationship is due, in great part, to the way Paul protects his mother from his father. Morel, Paul’s father, works as a miner. He is often manifested as having a cruel temper and an alcohol addiction. These two vices cause Morel to abuse his wife. Paul’s disdain for his father is not only a result of Morel’s beating his mother. It is because Lawrence believed in Freud’s Oedipal complex, which states that a son often feels the need to fight his father for the love of his mother. Wrote Lawrence in Sons and Lovers:

"Make himstop drinking," he prayed very often.

"Let him be killed at pit," he prayed when, after tea, the father did not come home from work.

In art, Freud’s influence extended directly down upon the surrealist painter Salvador Dali. In Dali’s 1929 The First day of Spring, various images are combined on canvas to represent a mind in turmoil. During the time in which he was painting, Dali’s relationship with his father was deteriorating. Unlike other Surrealists, who were influenced by Freud’s discoveries of the unconscious and dreams, Dali paints images that are more vivid. There is a photograph of Dali at the center of The First Day of Spring, alone amidst a desolate strip of desert. In the background, however, is an image of two people which represents Dali’s longing for a time when he was close to his father. The other figures in the piece are engaging in sexual activity and bizarre behavior. These images express the repressed rage Dali was experiencing. They also evince Dali’s faith in the Freudian theory that no experience exits the mind. The First Day of Spring, perhaps more a nightmare than a dream, shows how these experiences from life manifest themselves in dreams. Dali also agrees with Freud’s theory that a dream manifests a wish fulfilled. In Dali’s dream the wish is a stronger relationship with his father.

Back to Freud Home

Link to image of D.H. Lawrence

Link to image of Salvador Dali

Link to more info on D.H. Lawrence