Articles on Painting | Page 5 of 6 | Dr. John Diamond

Video: Painters Depicting the Yoni

Dr. Diamond discusses the tendency for painters, towards the end of their lives, to depict the Yoni, unconsciously seeing death as a return to the Great Mother. Another talk in the Art for Healing series.

See more videos by Dr Diamond on his YouTube channel.

“Why Reify the Content of Art?”

We have a desire, a need, to anthropomorphize God – and similarly, although to a lesser degree, to reify the content of art.

“Should I Paint on the Canvas?”

Look at that block of stone. Feel its spirit. Then ask yourself, Should it be sculpted?

“See Deeper by Viewing Upside Down”

When I want to study the structure of a sufferer’s face, for this determines so much of his vitality, I have him lie down and I sit above the vertex of his head.

“The Healing Potential of Art”

My deepest intention is that some day a sufferer, no matter how afflicted, will be able to look at a painting, at a photograph, and be instantly released from those chains and so be fully healed.

“Come Unto Me”

“Come unto me”: the paper calls – and the brush smiles.

Video: Making Paintings for Healing

Dr. Diamond discusses the development of his unique approach to making paintings for healing.

Video: Art as Metaverbal Communication

An excerpt from opening lecture of Dr. Diamond's exhibit at the Katonah Village Library in Katonah, NY, July 2011.

“Free Association”

Of course, I can be spontaneous, un-thinking, un-editing, when I paint. After all, I spent more than six years in daily psychoanalysis saying whatever came into my head: free association.

And I learned from this experience to trust my inner self, to give it its freedom. I came to Know that there was a Power that could heal me if I could just remove my ego restraints on It.

“Zuihitsu: Following the Brush”

I don’t write books, but essays which are sometimes later collected into book form. The Japanese call essays zuihitsu, literally, “following the brush.” And it often seems to me that this is the way I write – the words just coming out of my pen, as if automatic. Or at least how I would freely talk.