The Painter, the Baby, and the Psychoanalyst

Referring to Joyce McDougall’s theory of the homosexual basis of the act of creation (an original solution to the unfulfillable desire to be and to have both sexes), the author describes how painter Francis Bacon seems to give birth to himself as well as appropriate the experience of feeling oneself live. Although his work can be seen as a contemporary figuration equivalent to that of the Rosarium Philosophorum, it can also be interpreted as the chronicle of a quest shared by the painter, the baby, and the psychoanalyst. Each is intent upon gaining access to the force which animates the inner life of the loved one. The psychoanalyst’s act of creation consists in offering himself as both a medium and an audience to a patient, who can then create himself from these sources.