Art as a Projective Technique: A Study of the Paintings and Drawings of Nine Instutionalised Boys

Abstract

This study is an attempt to evaluate painting and drawing as a projective device capable of yielding information about personality structure. We will attempt two related lines of investigation: (a) A general comparison of the individual personality structures as revealed by drawing and painting gestalts, with the same personality structures as revealed by an integration of information derived from the study of each subject's Rorschach, Thematic Apperception, and Lowenfeld Mosaic Test records. (b) A comparison of particular aspects of individual painting and drawing analyses, with similar aspects of the Rorschach, Thematic Apperception, and Lowenfeld Mosaic Test Records. In so far as the personality structure, as revealed through drawings and paintings, is checked against and corroborated by a composite personality description obtained from the latter three projective techniques, then we shall consider the thesis to have been established.