The Horse's Eye - Animality, Humanity, and the Unconscious in Renaissance Art

This compelling book explores the depiction of horses and other animals in Renaissance painting through the lens of psychoanalysis. In The Horse''s Eye Giuseppe Civitarese, a seasoned clinician and psychoanalyst, delves into the profound connections between animality, the unconscious, and the human condition, providing a unique perspective on classical art. By examining the gaze of horses in art, the book raises provocative questions about free will, identity, and the nature of humanity. This is a truly interdisciplinary work that combines the author''s formidable erudition in classics, philosophy, literature and literary criticism, film studies, art history, and theology with his unique psychoanalytic sensibility. Offering profound meditations on the paintings that he observes so keenly, Civitarese illuminates how these artistic representations reveal the tensions between our instinctual drives and the illusion of self-control. This narrative, enriched by personal reflections and emotional resonance with the artworks, gives us a fresh and thought-provoking exploration of art, psychology, and the timeless question of what it means to be human.

About the author

Giuseppe Civitarese, MD, PhD, is a psychiatrist and training and supervising analyst (SPI, APsaA, IPA) in Pavia, Italy. He has published several books as editor or author, including On Arrogance: A Psychoanalytic Essay (2024), Psychoanalytic Field Theory: A Contemporary Introduction (2023), and Sublime Subjects: Aesthetic Experience and Intersubjectivity in Psychoanalysis (2017). He was the 2022 recipient of the Sigourney Award, which rewards outstanding work throughout the world that has advanced psychoanalytic thought and principles.

Product details

• Authors: Giuseppe Civitarese, Civitarese Giuseppe
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 06.08.2026
• EAN: 9798765145234
• ISBN: 9798765145234
• No. of pages: 224
• Series: Psychoanalytic Horizons
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; ART / Subjects & Themes / Plants & Animals, LITERARY CRITICISM / Renaissance, LITERARY CRITICISM / Comparative Literature, Comparative Literature, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Philosophy: aesthetics, Literature: history & criticism, Literary studies: general, Psychoanalytical and Freudian psychology, Renaissance art, Renaissance style, Psychoanalytical theory (Freudian psychology), Literary studies: c 1400 to c 1600, PSYCHOLOGY / Psychotherapy / Psychoanalysis, ART / Movements / Renaissance