[Spontaneity and awareness in art In memory of Bertalan Petho]

The psychological characteristics of artistic activity emerge along the spontaneity-awareness dimension. Artistic development proceeds from spontaneous manifestations to conscious planning. At each step of this process, the effects of attractive and repulsive reference predecessors appear until the individual voice, style and creative inventions are formed. This development may be completed by the establishment of the artistic identity and conscious image creation. A certain group of artists - naive, autodidactic artists, psychiatric patients - stay in the state of spontaneity; or they get stuck halfway in the development, and thus their works of art have some self-healing nature as among the confessional poets. Regressive states (emerging due to effects of chemicals or old-age dementia etc.) might re-call spontaneity. The spontaneous manifestations of some artists might be overwritten by conscious image building. Based on the characteristic features of artistic socialization, the following categories of artists can be set up: experienceoriented, ability-oriented, child, citizen/scholar, and psychiatric patient artist types.