Between about 1920 and 1955, especially in the USA and Britain, pictures began to be used in a variety of ‘projective tests’, which became influential in medicine, education, industry, and government. Some tested for ‘intelligence’, personality factors, and ‘unconscious’ mental inclinations; some were used in psychodiagnostic contexts (e.g., in identifying schizophrenia); and some were used in psychotherapy. The most well known, the Thematic Apperception Test, used photographs from magazines and other sources as well as well-known works of European and American art (especially in Symbolist and Expressionist traditions) and/or specially commissioned artworks. Subjects usually provided a ‘story’ for the pictures, which was then interpreted or even ‘scored’ by a clinician, often in quasi-psychoanalytic terms. The lecture considers the contexts and stakes of this enterprise, comparing and contrasting art-historical approaches to the interpretation of (the very same) pictures by projective test procedures. What were the theoretical bases of projective testing, including aesthetic ideologies? What can art and cultural historians learn from projective tests—and vice versa?

Whitney Davis is Pardee Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History & Theory of Ancient & Modern Art and Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley.