The Apprehension of Beauty: The Role of Aesthetic Conflict in Development, Art and Violence

Written with Meg Harris Williams, the book proposes that mental development begins not in persecution but in the infant's overwhelming response to the beauty of the mother. This aesthetic conflict lies between her outward beauty, open to the senses, and her interior, which is enigmatic and can only be imagined. Withdrawal from the conflict underlies many later disturbances, while the capacity to bear it underlies thinking, art and the analytic relationship. Williams's chapters read the conflict in poetry and literature. Its publisher describes the book as a family project of Martha Harris, her daughters Meg and Morag, and Meltzer.