Psychoanalysis and art: artistic representations in patients' dreams.

The authors explore the psychic passages that were opened up within a patient, Ada, thanks to her contact with two works of art, Signorelli's frescoes in Orvieto and Picasso's painting La Nageuse--their themes, formal structures, and the conventions governing their creation. A work of art can be considered as a kind of window that allows one to look upon the imaginary world created by the artist. One can peer out of this window from the other side, permitting a look at the viewer (the patient), who is caught in a web of associations that are yet to be explored.